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MAN'S   ORIGIN 


DESTINY 


SKETCHED  FROM  THE  PLATFORM 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCES 


J.  p.'lesley. 


Corporate  Member  of  the  National  Academy  of  the  U.S. —  Mem.  A.  A.  F.  A    S  ■ 

Mem.  Am.  Orient.  Soc. —  For.  Hon.  Mem.  Am,  Acad.  A.  and  S.—  For.  Cor.  Geul 

S.  London. —  Assoc.  Mem.  Soc.  Geol.  du  Nord. —  Cor   Mem.  SS.  Neufchatel 

AND  Emden.— State  Geologist  of  Pennsylvania. —  Senior  Sec  Am.  Phil. 

Soc.    Philadelphia. —  Prof.    Geol.    University  of   Pennsylvania. 


SECOND   EDITION,  ENLARGED. 


BOSTON: 

GEO.  H.  ELLIS,  141  FRANKLIN  STREET 

1881. 


Copyright,  1868  and  1881, 
By  J.  P.  LESLEY. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


Twelve  years  have  elapsed  since  the  appearance  of  the  little 
book  which  contains  the  first  ten  of  the  following  lectures,  and  the 
author  still  finds  people  now  and  then  reading  it  and  asking  for 
its  republication  at  a  price  less  unreasonable  than  that  at  which 
the  London  edition  \Aas  sold.  In  the  present  edition  I  have  ex- 
punged the  eleventh  lecture,  on  "  Arkite  Symbolism,"  as  unnecessary ; 
and  have  carried  out  the  original  intention  of  the  course  by  adding 
six  new  lectures  on  "  The  Destiny  of  i\Ian." 

The  notes  appended  to  the  former  edition  ai-e  here  omitted, 
because  they  were  merely  indicative  of  the  progress  made  in  various 
branches  of  science,  touching  the  history  of  man,  during  the  two 
years  intei'vening  between  the  delivery  of  my  lectures  and  their 
publication.  To  continue  and  complete  such  an  appendix  would 
greatly  swell  the  size  of  the  volume ;  and  yet  it  would  contain 
nothing  but  fresh  illustrations  of  the  general  view  presented,  with- 
out materially  modifying  the  integrity  of  the  text,  which  is  there- 
fore reprinted  from  the  stereotype  plates,  with  only  such  corrections 
as  were  called  for  by  typographical  errors. 

The  form  of  lecture  is  condemned  by  critics  who  admire  an  essay 
or  memoir  conveying  the  same  information  and  expressing  the 
same  opinions  in  essentially  the  same  language.  There  is  no 
good  reason  for  this  condemnation,  except  on  tlie  score  of  style ; 
and  the  essay  or  meujoir  must  necessarily  lack  that  ardor  of  feeling 
and  direct  insistence  of  argument  which  characterize  and  fortify 
the  lecturer.  Besides,  I  may  frankly  confess  that  I  have  neither 
time  nor  strength  to  spend  on  the  reconstruction  of  the  literary 
form  of  matter  whose  justification  must  be  found  in  its  substance. 

For  seven  yeai's,  since  accepting  the  direction  of  the  Second 
Geological  Survey  of  Penusyh^ania,  I  have  laid  aside  scholarly 
pursuits,  and  especially  those  philological  and  archa3ological  studies 
which,  begining  in  1834,  continued  to  be  the  recreations  of  a  busy 
life  till  1874. 

Of  course  I  have  forgotten  a  thousand  things  which  I  would  faiu 
remember,  and  many  a  thread  of  original  investigation,  more  or 
less  promising,  has  been  irremediably  broken.     Buildings  stopped 


iv  PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND   EDITION. 

in  the  process  of  erection  fall  back  into  ruins ;  and  the  scholar 
can  claim  no  immunity  from  the  operation  of  a  natural  law  "which 
sends  the  laggard  to  the  rear. 

But  genuine  loves  never  die ;  and  the  old  hobbies  of  a  student 
are  installed  in  his  affections  like  the  statues  of  demi-gods  in  the 
niches  of  a  temple.  And  life  is  too  anxious,  too  wearing,  a  struggle 
with  the  actual,  not  to  deserve  some  alleviation  at  the  hands  of 
memory  and  fancy.  The  sobered  soul  sighs  for  its  spent  vacations, 
and  hopes  and  listens  in  vain  for  the  hour  to  strike  which  shall 
announce  the  beginning  of  leisure  and  the  resumption  of  play. 

However  much  this  work  might  be  improved  by  being  rewritten 
in  better  style,  and  with  reference  to  later  researches,  1  could 
h;  .Jly  hope  thereby  to  enhance  greatly  its  power  to  produce  the 
effect  it  has  already  had, —  the  only  effect  ever  intended  for  it, — 
of  stimulating  one  class  of  minds  by  certain  new  suggestions, 
respecting  the  correlation  of  the  physical  sciences  with  the 
history  of  mankind. 

J.  P.  L. 
Philadelphia,  August,  1881. 


PREFACE. 


The  lectures  contained  in  this  volume  were  written  in  the  sum- 
mer of  ISG.j,  at  a  distance  from  the  author's  notes  and  library.  This 
will  account  for  the  paucicy  of  special  references,  observable  through- 
out the  greater  part  of  the  book. 

AVhen  delivered  in  the  lecture-room  of  the  Lowell  Institute,  the 
following  winter,  they  were  illustrated  by  numerous  wall  pictures, 
tables  of  statistics,  maps  and  diagrams  of  various  kinds,  only  a  few 
of  which  are  given  as  woodcuts  in  the  text. 

It  is  proper  to  add  that,  owing  to  the  very  judicious  restriction  of 
time  to  one  hour  by  the  rules  of  the  Institute,  not  much  more  than 
the  half  of  each  lecture  was  read,  except  in  the  case  of  the  last 
two,  which  occupied  four  evenings;  the  course  being  courteously 
extended  by  the  honorable  trustee  to  thirteen  for  that  purpose. 
The  twelfth  lecture  was,  therefore,  never  wi'itten  out,  and  is  com- 
mitted for  the  present  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader,  with  the 
suggestion,  that  it  would  better  justify  one  portion  of  the  title  chosen 
for  the  book  than  anything  actually  to  be  found  between  its  covers. 

Circumstances  made  it  impossible  to  print  the  lectures  at  the 
time  they  were  delivered.  Two  years,  in  fact,  have  passed.  New 
and  important  discoveries  in  archaeology  have  intervened.  A  good 
many  paragraphs  have  been  inserted,  therefore,  in  the  text,  and 
numerous  foot-notes  added.  The  simplicity  of  the  original  arrange- 
ment has  been  lost.  The  separate  subjects  of  the  different  lectures 
have  become,  to  a  certain  extent,  confused;  and  portions  of  the 
book  take  on  the  aspect  of  detailed  discussion,  suitable  only  to  a 
scientific  memoir,  while  other  portions  retain  their  original  charac- 
ter of  bird's-eye  view. 

The  author  never  contemplated  anything  beyond  a  general  sketch 
of  the  present  bearings  of  science  upon  the  vexed  question  of  the 
origin  and  earliest  history  of  man.  But  the  question  has  many  sub- 
divisions. He  intended  the  several  lectures  to  be  separate  sketches 
of  these  subdivisions  of  the  field  of  discussion,  mere  introductions 
to  their  proper  study.  His  views  are  stated,  therefore,  in  round 
terms.  Nothing  is  closely  reasoned  out.  Much  is  left  to  the  log- 
ical instinct,  and  more  to  the  literary  education  of  the  reader. 
Reference   is   everywhere  made  to  sources  of   information  within 


^/ 


VI  PREFACE. 

easy  reach  of  all.  Even  the  style  of  an  essay  has  been  avoided. 
Tlie  book  is  merely  a  series  of  familiar  conversations  iipon  the  cur- 
rent topics  of  interest  in  the  scientific  world. 

If  its  perusal  start  a  single  youthful  mind  upon  the  track  of  an 
original  investigation  —  as  the  j^erusal  of  Ilarcourt  on  tlie  Deluge, 
twenty  years  ago,  opened  before  the  author  a  new  series  of  combi- 
nations of  the  facts  of  history  and  science  —  or  if,  without  any 
deeper  study  of  the  facts  alleged  upon  its  pages,  its  general  views 
insj)ire  a  single  reader  with  more  reverence  for  science,  less  fear  of 
iresh  opinions,  a  more  intelligent  curiosity  about  forgotten  things, 
which  still  are  at  their  old  work  in  the  modern  world,  and  with  a 
surer  faith  in  the  growth  of  human  happiness,  the  author  will  be 
more  than  satisfied. 

Hut  even  the  mere  retrospect  of  the  labors  of  men  of  science 
upon  the  theme  of  this  book  has  been  so  great  a  pleasure  to  him 
that  he  cannot  repress  the  feeling  that  others  must  enjoy  it  likewise. 

J.  P.  L. 

La  Tour  de  Peitz,  Vevay,  Switzeblaio}. 
Nov.  20,  18G7. 


m 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  PAOB 

I.     On  the  Classification  of  tub  Sciences. 1 

II.    On  the  Genius  of    the  Physical    Sciences,  An- 
cient AND  Modern, 20 

III.  The  Geological  Antiquity  of  Man 43 

IV.  On  the  Dignity  of  Mankind 68 

V.     On  the  Unity  of  Mankind, 94 

YI.     On  the  Eakly  Social  Life  of  Man 122 

VII.    On  Language  as  a  Test  of  Eace 158 

VIII.     The  Growth  of  Architecture 183 

IX.     The  Growth  of  the  Alphabet, 214 

X.     The  Four  Types  of  Religious  Worship 253 

XI.     The  Possible  in  Destiny, 295 

XII.    The  Destiny  of  Man, 301 

XIII.  The  Phy'SICAl  Destiny  of  the  Race. 321 

XIV.  The  Social  Destiny  of  the  Race, 355 

XV.    The  Future  Economies  of  Mankind, 371 

XVI.     The   Intellectual   and   Moral  Destiny  of   the 

Race, 397 

Index 435 


LECTURE   I. 

ON   THE   CLASSIFICATION    OF   THE    SCIENCES. 

In  considering  how  I  can  best  open  the  subject  of  the 
present  course  of  Lectures^  I  am  reminded  of  a  favourite 
sarong  of  the  greatest  Lecturer  that  ever  lived,  and  one 
whose  lightest  recorded  thought  has  sunk,  with  the  weight 
of  a  great  principle  of  truth,  into  the  consciousness  of 
modern  times  : — 

•  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear  ! ' 

One  of  the  artists  of  New  England  told  me  that,  in  his 
opinion,  no  man  could  successfully  paint  a  tree,  a  deer,  or 
a  dog,  unless  he  first  became  one  himself;  unless  he  had 
pursued  and  been  pursued ;  felt  the  freedom  of  the  winds 
and  waters,  and  that  intimate  brotherhood  and  fellowship 
with  living  things,  which  sharpens  every  sense  to  the 
quick  impressions  of  nature.  Enthusiasm  is  the  mother 
of  art. 

Rus-sell  Smith,  certainly  the  master  scenist  of  America, 
built  himself  a  cottage  on  the  summit  of  the  Alleghanies, 
in  the  heart  of  the  primeval  forest,  and  brought  down 
from  thence  a  friend,  the  finest  elm  tree  in  the  world, 
painting  it,  as  large  as  life,  upon  the  great  drop-scene  of 
the  Academy  of  Music  in  Philadelphia ;  where  it  still 
stands,  spreading  out  its  gigantic  stem  and  splendid  plume 
against  a  background  of  blue  sky;  and  every  branch  and 
twig  and  leaf  of  it  is  real,  for  it  was  drawn  in  love.  The 
artist  summered  it  and  wintered  it  as  his  bosom  friend, 

1 


2  ON    THE    CLASSIFICATION  [LECT, 

until  he  knew  how  every  vein  of  sap  whicli  fed  it^  ran ; 
until  he  could  distinguish  the  voice  of  its  particular  folio.ge 
fi'om  the  whole  music  of  that  wilderness^  as  a  nice  ear 
picks  out  and  follows  the  part  of  some  dear  instrument  in 
an  orchestra,  until  he  could  recognize  afar  off  every  scar 
and  moss-spot  on  it,  as  a  lover  can  detect  his  heart's  de- 
light among  a  thousand  other  beauties  at  a  ball.  Love  is 
the  law  of  knowledge  ;   and  love  is  life  in  the  beloved. 

Rosa  Bonheur  in  the  cattle-yard  ;  Hinckley  among  his 
dogs ;  Church  sailing  through  ice-bergs  and  drinking  into 
his  soul  the  flaming  northern  skies ;  Espy  upon  his  house- 
roof  at  Harrisburg  watching  live-long  nights  the  forma- 
tion and  dissolution  of  clouds ;  Agassiz  and  Desor  in  their 
cave-house  on  the  medial  moraine  watching  through  eight 
successive  summers  the  motions  of  the  glacier  of  the  Aai-; 
Hammond  for  eighteen  months  weighing  his  meat  and  drink 
to  discover  and  explain  the  exact  effects  of  whisky  and  to- 
bacco upon  the  growth  and  decay  of  the  living  tissues  of 
the  human  body ;  or  that  noble  Frenchman,  who,  instead  of 
flying,  like  the  rest,  from  the  mysterious  plague,  or  fight- 
ing with  it  hopelessly  and  desperately  because  its  nature 
was  unknown,  rather  chose  to  make  love  to  it ;  took  it, 
as  Delilah  took  Samson  on  her  lap,  to  shear  his  locks  of 
demon  strength ;  shut  himself  in  with  it ;  watched  the 
progress  of  the  disease  in  his  own  body ;  recorded  all  its 
symptoms ;  explained  its  methods  of  attack ;  discovered 
its  weak  point,  and  gave  with  his  dying  hand  to  the  world 
a  remedy  : — such  men  as  these  teach  us  the  noblest  of  all 
arts — the  art  of  Enthusiasm. 

When  the  thinker  becomes  a  speaker,  he  becomes  an 
artist.  His  audience  can  justly  criticise  his  subject  only 
as  they  pardon  his  enthusiasm  by  sharing  in  it.  He  intro- 
duces to  your  acquaintance  his  oldest  and  dearest  friends — 
thoughts,  which  to  him  are  great  thoughts,  because  they 
have  commanded  his  best  years.  He  paints  in  words 
before  you  the  scenery  of  his  soul's  home ;  a  mingled 
landscape,  where  the  reason  has  ploughed  and  reaped  by 
day,  and  the  fancy  loitered  and  listened  and  made  love  by 
night.  He  gives  you  water  from  a  spring,  the  equal  of 
which,  he  fain  would  have  you  say,  exists  not  anywhere. 
He  names  you  over  all  his  orchard  trees,  and  looks  wist- 
fully to  see  how  their  fruit  hits  your  taste.     He  leads  you 


1.]  OF   THE   SCIENCES.  8 

by  his  "well-worn  paths  of  argument^  to  points  of  view 
which  have  become  the  dehght  of  his  spirit ;  seats  you 
where  he  has  sat  himself  a  thousand  times  entranced,  and 
mutely  begs  you  to  worship  with  him  before  his  wondrous 
Oberland.  If  he  fails  to  inspire  you  with  that  delicious 
enthusiasm,  he  loses  your  friendship,  and  you  lose  his.  If 
what  to  him  are  mountains  of  eternal  truth,  to  you  seem 
mist  and  fog,  nothing  is  gained,  and  everything  is  lost; 
to  you,  the  present  effort ;  to  him,  the  entire  past.  The 
teacher  must  be  believed  in — for  the  present  moment,  at 
all  events  ;  let  the  conclusion  determine  how  justly.  Cor- 
diality is  of  more  avail  for  the  discoveiy  and  appreciation 
of  truth  than  curiosity.  Only  when  all  cried,  lo  Bacche ! 
together,  the  god  appeared.  And  even  the  Divine  Lecturer 
could  only  tell  what  the  world  already  knew  or  was  well 
prepared  to  know. 

We  all,  no  doubt,  have  favourite  sciences.  We  all,  no 
doubt,  consider  each  one  his  own  the  flower  and  perfect 
consummation  of  the  intellectual  world.  Does  not  the 
visible  universe  concentrate  its  glories  in  the  individual 
eyeball  ?  It  is  only  by  numberless  shiftings  of  position 
that  the  human  mind  can  obtain  a  generous  perspective  of 
all  truths.  Each  science  has  its  own  domain,  and  is  para- 
mount lord  within  those  limits.  When  it  visits  neighbour- 
ing potentates,  it  may  be  received  with  all  the  honours ; 
but,  when  seated,  sits  subordinate,  and  must  hold  its 
sceptre  with  diminished  dignity.  The  king  is  the  first  at 
court,  but  the  general  is  first  in  the  field.  And  what  are 
king  and  general  but  no-bodies  in  the  laboratory  of  Liebig 
or  Faraday  ?  And  what  are  Liebig  and  Faraday  but  ex- 
press packages  to  the  mind  of  Captain  Anderson  in  an  ice- 
fog  off  the  banks  ?  Everything  in  its  place, — everything  to 
its  purpose  :  that  is  the  prime  law.  That  differentiates  the 
universe,  gives  it  living  activities,  intense  energies,  precise 
results,  variety  of  beauties,  individual  worth.  But  all  for 
each  and  each  for  all,  is  God's  grand  spell  upon  his  uni- 
verse, by  which  he  marshals  its  forces  against  disorder, 
and  establishes  eternal  harmony  ;  drawing  slowly  forth 
his  silken  rainbow-coloured  rilDbon  from  that  mist  of 
threads  which  hovers  behind  the  loom.  This  is  the  charm 
of  the  science  of  the  nineteenth  century  ;  harmony  in  di- 
versity ;  multiplicity  in  unity.     Never  was  the  dissection 


4  ON    THE    CLASSIFICATION  [lECT. 

of  single  objects  carried  so  far  as  by  our  special  natural- 
ists ;  and  yet  tbe  dreams  of  the  ancients  were  not  so 
grandly  universal  as  the  panorama  unrolled  for  contempla- 
tion and  elucidation  by  modern  philosophers. 

Yet  there  is  being  established,  with  all  this,  a  real  order 
of  precedency  among  our  sciences.  Some  of  them  take 
naturally  a  wider  range  than  others  :  geology,  for  instance. 
Some  grow  daily  more  and  more  departmental,  functional, 
and  ancillary. 

The  history  of  empires  is  the  history  of  science.  Their 
boundaries  shift.  Smaller  states  are  absorbed  into  king- 
doms. On  the  other  hand,  empires  which  have  been  in- 
discreetly enlarged  by  an  agglomeration  of  hostile  or  un- 
sympathizing  nationalities,  fall  asunder,  and  out  of  the 
debris  are  instituted  separate  and  almost  independent 
regimes. 

I  will  speak  of  Geology  as  illustrating  both  these  tend- 
encies. At  first  it  was  like  one  of  those  wild  tribes  of  Ger- 
many that  conquered  the  Eoman  Empire.  It  was  a  rude, 
undisciplined  study  of  a  few  of  the  most  prominent  features 
of  the  ground.  But  gathering  strength  as  it  developed 
the  observing  faculties,  and  emancipating  itself  from  its 
aboriginal  superstition  of  the  Lusus  Nattcrce,  adopting  the 
purer  faith  in  Cause  and  Effect,  it  conquered  and  subju- 
gated, one  by  one,  all  the  other  branches  of  human  know- 
ledge. The  dukes  of  this  new  Burgundy  outshone  and 
outweighed  their  liege  lords — kings  and  emperors.  Its 
later  princes — Von  Buch,  De  Beaumont,  Murchison,  and 
Lyell,  formed  a  splendid  dynasty.  The  wealth  of  the  whole 
world  of  science  flowed  into  its  public  treasury.  The}^'  were 
even  not  afraid  to  wage  war  against  the  world  of  meta- 
physics, and  it  seemed  as  though  Church  as  well  as  State 
would  be  absorbed  into  one  great,  upstart,  irresponsible 
despotism. 

But  how  is  it  now?  Geology,  as  an  empire,  exists  no 
longer.  Instead,  we  see  three  kingdoms:  thi'ee  kingdoms 
so  separated,  that  no  one  who  rules  in  the  one  is  accounted 
of  the  highest  authority  in  the  other  two.  1st,  We  have 
the  science  of  Structural  Geology,  which  may  be  said  to 
represent,  somewhat,  the  old  science  before  it  was  divided. 
2nd,  We  have  the  science  of  Paleontology  or  Fossil  Geo- 
logy, which  first  succeeded  to  the  power  of  the  old  empire, 


I,]  OP   THE    SCIENCES.  5 

and  has  for  some  time  past  been  dominating,  witli  a  toueli 
of  arrogance  too,  its  structural  neighbour.  And  3rd,  We 
have  the  science  of  Chemical  Geology,  a  new  and  rising 
state,  full  of  enterprise,  and  destined  to  absorb  the  con- 
federate states,  known,  in  scientific  parlance,  by  the  name 
of  Physics. 

And  yet  these  three  are  one.  Nor  can  a  student  of  na- 
ture account  himself  well-bred  unless  he  travels  through 
them  all ;  although  he  will  accomplish  nothing  great  unless 
he  naturalizes  himself,  and  makes  a  home  for  himself,  in 
only  one  of  them.  But  what  will  not  then  that  home  of  his 
become  !  What  a  castle  of  intellectual  strength  !  What  a 
cloister  of  various  learnings  !  What  a  museum  of  antiqui- 
ties !  What  a  rendezvous  of  the  choicest  spirits  of  the 
age  ! 

Let  me  imagine  myself  for  one  moment  a  geologist,  well 
established  in  such  a  place,  occupied  with  the  study  of  the 
formation  of  this  earth,  its  sedimentary  and  metamorphic 
and  volcanic  rocks,  the  faults  it  has  committed,  the  plica- 
tions and  contortions  it  has  endm-ed,  the  mineral  veins 
deposited  in  its  fissures,  the  organic  forms  it  has  entombed, 
its  reservoirs  of  brine  and  oil,  its  burning  mountains,  its 
earthquakes,  its  changes  of  sea  level,  its  glaciers  and  mo- 
raines, its  golden  gravel,  its  meteoric  stones,  its  ossuaiy 
caves  and  deposits  of  worked  flints,  its  motions  through 
space,  its  influxes  from  the  sun,  its  beginnings  in  eternity. 
Can  any  theme  be  more  capital,  more  universal  ?  Is  any 
science  excluded  ?  Is  any  question  impertinent  ?  Must  I 
not  subpoena  everything  that  lives,  and  that  does  not  live, 
before  this  case  is  through  ?  Has  not  every  savant  of  the 
Academy  something  to  tell  about  it  ? 

The  architect  and  civil  engineer  begin  by  relating  their 
experience  of  the  choice  of  granites  and  clays,  the  weight 
and  strength  of  building  materials.  The  miner  and  the 
metallurgist  recount  me  their  latest  improvements  in  rais- 
ing, selecting,  and  reducing  the  various  ores.  The  chemist 
hangs  upon  my  wall  his  nicest  table  of  equivalents,  and 
explains  me  why  the  magnesian  limestones  were  the^7's^ 
ones  formed.  The  zoologist  and  the  botanist  lay  upon  the 
table,  on  each  side  of  me,  their  latest  enlarged  and  cor- 
rected synopses  of  fossil  and  recent  synonymes.  The  Arch- 
deacon of  Calcutta  employs  his  heaviest  mathematical  sym- 


6  ON    THE    CLASSIFICATION  [lECT. 

bols  in  weighing  for  me  the  plateau  of  Central  Asia,  while 
Thompson  and  Hennesy  are  calculating  the  maximum  and 
minimum  possible  thickness  of  the  crust.  With  his  new 
automatic  tide  gauges,  and  with  the  waves  produced  hj 
the  earthquake  of  Simoda,  Bache  gets  for  me  the  mean 
depth  of  the  Pacific,  while  Darwin  and  Dana  decide,  from 
the  arrangement  of  their  coral  reefs,  the  number  and  direc- 
tion of  its  belts  of  alternate  elevation  and  depression  ;  Sa- 
bine and  De  Struve  report  the  progress  they  are  making  in 
determining  the  earth's  exact  departure  from  a  globular 
form.  Astronomers  swarm  about  me  with  their  specula- 
tions upon  cosmogony,  and  assign  various  reasons  why  the 
earth^s  nucleus  is  hot  or  cold,  is  fluid  or  solid,  and  why- 
it  must  have  sprung  from  the  consolidation  of  a  nebula,  or 
why  from  the  conglomeration  of  an  infinite  number  of 
meteors.  The  Alpine  Club  petition  for  the  pleasure  of 
my  company  on  their  next  ascent  of  Mont  Blanc;  and 
even  Ruskin,  the  artist,  insists  on  fixing  me  in  a  good 
light,  so  that  I  may  catch  the  genuine  bedplate  lines  on 
the  precipices  of  the  Arve,  and  never  again  make  the  ab- 
surd blunder  of  mistaking  the  cleavage  of  the  shists  for 
original  stratification. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  poor  geologist^s  head  is  turned 
by  so  much  attention  ?  That  he  accounts  his  own  par- 
ticular science  the  summum  bonum  of  truth  ?  Yet  in 
almost  an  equal  degree  may  the  physicist,  the  astronomer, 
the  naturalist,  the  arch^ologist,  the  metaphysician  cheat 
himself  with  the  sweet  delusion,  that  he  sits  at  the  centre 
while  others  stand  around.  For  let  a  soul,  by  purity, 
patience,  and  love,  tame  but  one  science,  and  it  will  have, 
like  Una  with  her  lion,  the  freedom  of  the  whole  forest. 

What,  then,  is  the  real  order  of  the  sciences  ?  Or  is 
there  such  a  thing  ?  Or  is  knowledge  like  a  hollow  sphere, 
within  which  the  soul  of  man  feels  itself  floating  between 
equal  attractions  in  all  directions  ?  Is  there  any  hierarchy 
of  the  sciences  ?  Is  it  as  noble  to  know,  as  ennobling  to 
determine,  the  number  of  rings  constituting  a  genus 
among  myriopoda,  as  it  is  to  discover  the  number  of 
vibrations  corresponding  to  a  given  colour  in  the  rainbow, 
or  the  number  of  formations  deposited  with  their  suc- 
cessive floree  and  faunae  in  all  the  ages  from  the  Lawrentian 
era  to  the  present  time  ?     Or,  setting  this  aesthetic  ques- 


I-J 


OF    THE    SCIENCES. 


tion  on  one  side,  can  tlie  liuman  reason  find  no  just  ar- 
rangement of  the  sciences,  by  which  our  ideas  of  progress 
and  development  may  be  realized,  and  their  natural  sub- 
ordination and  interdependence  so  shown  forth  as  to  satisfy 
our  love  of  perspective  ? 

Others  may  answer  this  question  in  other  ways.  The 
remaining  time,  which  your  politeness  will  allow  to  this 
lecture,  cannot  perhaps  be  better  consumed  than  in  stat- 
ing, as  clearly  as  I  may,  the  order  which  appears  most 
natural  to  me,  when  I  attempt  to  classify  the  various  de- 
partments of  human  knowledge.  And  I  find  myself  in  a 
manner  compelled  to  make  this  preliminary  statement, 
since  I  have  chosen  for  the  subject  of  the  present  course 
of  lectures,  '  the  relation  of  the  modern  sciences  to  the 
primeval  history  of  man.^ 

Do  not  imagine,  from  this  title,  that  I  intend  to  develop 
in  formal  style,  after  the  manner  of  the  German  meta- 
physicians, a  history  of  philosophy.  I  willingly  leave  that 
immense  task  to  the  vivacious  eloquence  of  Erdmann, 
prince  of  Hegelians,  and  to  the  golden  pen  of  Whewell, 
vice-chancellor  of  induction.  I  have  a  much  more  special 
design  :  to  show  how  the  bonfires  we  have  lighted  and  are 
feeding  with  fresh  fuel  every  day,  cast  back  their  illumina- 
tion through  the  forest  and  over  the  moors  of  history; 
bringing  out  from  the  thick  night  and  distance  bizarre 
but  moving  forms,  progenitors  of  our  progenitors  a  hun- 
dred times  removed ;  lighting  up  their  savage  features, 
not  wholly  bestial  nor  insane,  not  wholly  destitute  perhaps 
of  some  angelic  or  Adamic  excellence ;  so  that  we  may 
specify  some  of  those  earlier  forms  of  soul  to  which  was 
given  this  planet  for  a  habitation,  and  be  able  to  make  out 
the  original  nature  of  many  things  which  gibber  and 
mowe  at  us  through  the  dim  past,  as  if  they  were  super- 
natural attachments  to  our  history,  evil  genii,  imperti- 
nences and  intrusions  on  the  premises  of  our  race,  and 
not  amenable  to  any  exorcism  except  that  performed  with 
fasting  and  prayer.  It  is  my  firm  belief  that  the  time 
comes  for  explaining  the  beginnings  of  human  life  upon 
the  earth;  that  if  all  the  sciences  can  be  brought  to  act 
in  concert  they  can  do  much  towards  already  setting  up 
primeval  archseology  upon  its  future  throne.  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  show — I  am  sorry  I  can  only  do  it  sketch- wise 


8  ON    THE    CTASSIFICATION  [lECT. 

— how  we  can  combine  the  results  of  the  geologists,  the 
ethnologists,  and  the  linguists,  with  the  creations  of  the 
priest,  the  poet,  and  the  architect,  to  restore  and  re-colour 
the  faded,  broken  fresco-painting  of  the  ages  on  the  walls 
of  the  temple  of  history.  But  to  accumulate  evidence  we 
must  examine  the  value  of  each  witness.  And  the  first  step 
is  to  call  the  roll  and  swear  them  in  by  name  and  residence. 

The  earliest  attempts  to  classify  knowledge  distinguished 
between  the  natural  and  supernatural;  between  the  phy- 
sical and  metapthysical  ;  between  that  which  relates  to 
phenomena  appreciable  by  the  bodily  senses,  and  that 
which  relates  to  the  essence  and  power  of  things,  the 
moods  of  intellect,  and  the  status  and  intentions  of  Deity. 
Of  the  first-named  distinction  of  the  subject-matter  of 
human  knowledge  into  the  natural  and  supernatural  I 
may  have  occasion  to  speak  at  large  in  a  future  lecture, 
because  it  has  been  much  misunderstood.  The  second 
distinction,  viz.  into  physical  and  metaphysical,  although 
it  maintains  its  importance,  in  a  measure,  to  the  present 
day,  is  felt  by  every  thinker  to  be  so  general  and  so 
vague,  so  indistinct  in  the  light  of  modern  investigations, 
that  it  remains  in  use  only  as  a  popular  convenience  for 
common  conversation. 

The  word  physics,  from  the  Greek  verb  fud,  I  grow, 
means  the  science  of  nature  seen  under  the  conditions  of 
growth.  But  we  need  to  introduce  among  the  sciences  of 
nature^s  growths  the  sciences  of  nature's /orces,  with  many 
of  which  we  have  become  experimentally  acquainted.  These 
forces  are  no  longer  considered  as  outside  of  nature,  or 
above  nature  (^neiaphysical),  they  are  no  longer  gods  and 
demons,  but  laws.  In  fact,  modern  science  has  trans- 
ferred the  name  physics  entirely  to  the  discussion  of  this 
class  of  sciences,  including  the  knowledge  and  use  of  num- 
bers and  quantities.  The  word  '  physics '  now  means  the 
teaching  of  the  growth-causing  agencies :  light,  heat,  elec- 
tricity, galvanism,  magnetism,  gravity,  &c.  And  the  ut- 
most to  which  the  meaning  of  the  word  is  ever  extended 
only  takes  in  the  application  of  the  experimental  know- 
ledge of  these  forces  to  the  sub-sciences  of  astronomy,  me- 
teorology, and  geodesy.  All  true  (pvins  is  now  no  longer 
discussed  as  'physics,'  but  as  'natural  histoiy ;'  the 
growth  of  plants;  the  growth  of  animals  and  man.     And 


I.]  OF    THE    SCIENCES.  9 

yet  this  growth  is  effected  by  a  force  which  has  not  been 
enumerated  among  the  physical  forces,  and  is  not  even 
alluded  to  in  the  science  of  physics  proper,  viz.  the  form 
force,  the  forvia  fonnans  of  the  schoolmen;  that  idea  of 
itself  which  every  growing  being  has  how  it  shall  form 
itself  in  growing.  This  has  nothing  (so  far  as  we  know) 
to  do  with  what  we  call  mind,  reason,  instinct,  or  any  of 
those  fruits  of  brain- structure  or  nervous  organization, 
which  are  the  special  objects  of  study  of  the  intellectual 
sciences  ;  but  underlies  and  antedates  them ;  inasmuch 
as  the  form-force  even  determines  in  each  family,  genus, 
and  species  of  beings,  whether  there  shall  be  a  brain  or 
not,  and  what  rank  its  intelligence,  reason,  or  instinct 
shall  take. 

This  living  form-force  is  the  true  basis  of  the  sciences 
of  natural  history,  'distinguishing  them  from  the  science  of 
the  imponderables,  or  the  'so-called  physical  forces  of 
space. 

But  there  is  also  what  may  be  called  the  dead  form- 
force,  which  acts  (equally  beyond  our  comprehension) 
through  the  inorganic  or  non-growing  world,  producing  all 
kinds  of  crystals,  minerals,  and  rocks ;  determining  their 
shapes  also,  with  as  despotic  a  decree  as  that  which  fatal- 
izes  the  shape  of  a  tulip  tree,  or  of  the  panther  that 
stretches  himself  in  ambush  along  its  branches.  In  fact 
all  the  crystalline  world  is  as  much  a  ^  growing^  part  of 
nature  as  are  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms.*  But 
we  suppose  them  to  grow  under  the  operation  of  the 
purely  physical  forces  only ;  and  therefore  we  place  their 
sciences  of  chemistry,  mineralogy,  and  geology,  between 
pure  physics  and  pure  natural  history. 

In  the  historical  development  of  all  the  sciences  lies  are 
the  beginnings  of  truth.  That  Helen,  whose  beauty  set 
the  world  at  arms,  began  existence  in  a  shape  so  hideous 
as  to  be  concealed  for  nine  long  months  from  every  eye. 
Criticism  then,  even  the  criticism  of  love,  would  have 
been  fatal  to  her.  So  has  it  been  with  each  embryo 
science.  Hidden  in  the  ignorance  of  Plato  and  of  Aristotle, 
in  the  so-called  history  of  Herodotus  and  geography  of 
Strabo,  were  the  germs  of  some  of  our  grandest  sciences ; 

•  See  the  beautiful  sap-growth  of  Arragonite  in  the  caves  of  Derby- 
shire.— Q.  J.  Geol.  Society,  Lond.  xxi. 


10  ON    THE    CLASSIFICATION  [lECT. 

ethnology,  philology,  sociology,  theology ;  the  natui'es  of 
which  being  nobler  than  those  of  the  physical  and  natural 
sciences,  inasmuch  as  they  deal  entirely  with  man,  man's 
soul  and  God,  God^s  providence  and  institutions  for  the 
future,  require  longer  to  mature,  and  are  therefore  still 
not  so  far  advanced  as  they  might  be  ;  but  in  those  early 
days  they  were  like  the  Hebrew  poet's  chaos,  tohu-va-bohu, 
without  form  and  void. 

Those  tales  of  the  Makrobioi,  or  long-lived  happy  patri- 
archs ;  of  the  Lotophagoi,  nature's  own  epicures  ;  of  Pig- 
mies and  Troglodytes  ;  of  men  with  tails,  and  men  with  but 
one  foot,  and  that  one  iai'ge  enough  to  be  of  use  at  noon 
for  an  umbrella ;  of  Arimaspians  and  cannibal  Massagetes ; 
of  satyrs  and  ogres ;  of  Niobe  and  Lot's  wife,  and  whole 
nations  turned  for  their  pride  into  marble  statues ;  of 
Deucalion  and  Pyrrha,  Nimrod  and  the  Tower  of  Babel, 
Cadmus  and  his  dragon's  teeth,  Pelasgus,  Dorus,  and 
jfEneas,  and  the  numerous  lying  genealogies  of  nations, 
accepted  then  as  all-sufficient  explanations  of  the  course 
of  events  preceding  the  times  of  their  authors,  and  re- 
jected by  us  as  figments  of  the  imagination, — were  these 
not  the  faint  first  flutterings  of  the  unborn  and  yet  un- 
fashioned  foetus,  which  has  grown  in  course  of  ages  to  be 
that  thing  of  strength  and  beauty  which  we  name  ethnology, 
the  science  of  nations  ?  that  queen  regnant  of  the  human 
sciences,  daughter  of  chronology,  and  mother  of  history, 
whose  two  fair  sisters  sit  at  each  hand  of  her — mythology 
and  archeeology — an  imperial  group  ! 

It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  we  are  taking  human 
studies  in  their  natural  order.  Fii-st,  thoughts;  then,  things. 
In  the  beginning  was  the  Word  ;  then  the  Word  was  made 
flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us.  We  must  go  backward,  not 
forward,  to  obtain  the  absolute ;  for  out  of  the  abstract  con- 
ception comes  forth  the  concrete  reality.  Before  the  uni- 
verse was  God  was ;  and  with  him  dwelt  the  eternal  and 
immutable  relations  of  number.  Mathematics  and  Physics 
give  us  th»!  prime  postulates  of  all  creation.  This  is  the 
group  of  sciences  which  must  necessarily  lead  the  pro- 
cession. 

Then  follow  the  incarnations  of  numbers  and  forces  in 
matter,  giving   us  chemical  and  geological   laws  for  the 


I.]  OF    THE    SCIENCES.  11 

creation  of  the  lowest  and  oldest,  the  inorganic  world. 
Thus  we  have  our  second  group. 

Then  come  the  organic  sciences  as  a  third  group,  carry- 
ing up  the  scheme  of  Hfe  to  man. 

Fourthly,  we  have  the  historic  sciences ;  discussing  what 
man's  life  has  been,  from  his  appearance  on  the  planet 
until  now. 

Then  rise  grave  questionings — what  man^s  life  ought  to 
be.  From  these  questionings,  begun  by  Pythagoras  and 
Plato  long  ago,  and  continued  by  philosophers  of  all  ages, 
a  steadily  thickening  crowd  (become  at  last  so  great  that 
we  may  affirm  with  truth,  in  this  year  of  1865,  that  all  the 
thinking  men  and  women  of  Europe  and  America  are  in  it), 
there  has  been  elaborated  a  new  science.  Sociology,  the 
doctrine  of  Right  Society;  or,  rather,  a  fifth  group  of  allied 
sciences  under  the  various  names  of  Statistics,  Finance, 
Construction,  National  Defence,  and  Equity.  Each  of  these 
has  its  facts  and  its  theories,  its  principles  and  its  history 
of  practice.  Mankind  was  made  gregarious  ;  society  has 
always  existed ;  manufactures,  commerce,  war,  and  law 
have  always  been,  and  must  always  continue  to  be,  its  four 
methods  of  self-expression.  No  others  can  be  named.  On 
their  well-collated  statistics  must  be  established  all  our  just 
explanations  of  history,  all  our  successful  schemes  of  phi- 
lanthropy, all  politics  that  may  escape  reproach.  Statistics 
are  the  mathematics  of  Sociology ;  and  the  Treadwells  and 
Stephensons,  the  Barings  and  Girards,  the  Napoleons  and 
Grants,  the  Blackstones  and  Marshalls  of  modern  times,  are 
as  much  men  of  science,  if  not  of  as  high  a  grade,  as  Pascal 
and  Descartes,  Leibnitz  and  Newton,  Peirce  and  Henry, 
Bcrzelius  and  Dumas,  Owen  and  Agassiz,  in  the  so-called 
World  of  science.  To  freight  a  Great  Eastern  with  living- 
souls  for  a  land  of  liberty  is  a  grander  achievement  of  the 
centuries  than  to  transmit  the  price  of  American  gold  by 
submarine  telegraph  to  the  Brokers^  Board  in  London,  to 
be  used  in  behalf  of  vested  wrono^s  for  back-holdincr  the 
progress  of  humanity.  Nor  is  it  to  be  doubted  for  a  mo- 
ment by  a  Boston  audience,  at  the  close  of  the  Great  He- 
bellion,  that  the  Atlantis  of  Plato  was  a  crude  boy's  dream 
compared  with  that  splendid  vision  of  a  justified  and  sanc- 
tified E-epublic,  founded  on  the  experience  of  the  Saxon 


12  ON   THE    CLASSIFICATION  [lECT. 

race  in  a  new  world,  equipped  by  all  the  arts  and  sciences, 
instructed  by  Christianity _,  and  invested  with  liberty,  pro- 
phesied for  the  last  thirty  years  by  your  own  immortal 
William  Lloyd  Garrison,  and  now  almost  fulfilled.  In  this 
large  workshop  of  the  Free  States  of  America,  the  whole 
rolling  stock  of  civilization  is  being  reinvented,  tested,  and 
started  off  afresh  upon  the  track  of  history.  In  the  schools, 
and  courts,  and  legislatures  of  these  commonwealths,  the 
social  sciences  are  rapidly  attaining  that  nice  precision  and 
that  generous  scope  which  already  characterize  the  mathe- 
matical, the  organic,  and  historical  sciences,  with  all  of 
which  they  are  so  closely  allied. 

And  now,  if  I  have  not  already  wearied  your  patience,  I 
must  instance  still  another— the  last  and  noblest  class  of 
all  the  group  of  the  intellectual  sciences.  Those  which  I 
have  already  described  relate  to  the  measurement  of  space 
and  time,  to  the  attributes  of  matter,  to  the  growth  of 
plants  and  animals,  to  mankind  as  part  of  the  animal  world, 
and,  finally,  to  mankind  in  masses,  obedient  to  physical  ne- 
cessity and  planetic  circumstances.  But  these  relate  to 
Ma7i.  These  teach  the  expressions  of  a  supernatural  na- 
ture; of  a  spirit  which  we  believe  to  be  immortal,  self- 
conscious,  self- studious,  inventive  and  creative,  open-eyed, 
and  tongued  for  speech,  responsive  to  all  mysteries,  and 
destined  for  all  glories. 

The  base  and  platform  of  this  pre-eminent  group  of 
sciences  is  Language.  Philology  is  the  mathematics  of 
the  soul,  teaching  us  the  rudiments  of  utterance.  The 
sciences  of  feeling  are  named  Belles  Lettres  and  the  Fine 
Arts  ;  Logic  is  the  science  of  thought ;  Ethics  the  science 
of  conscience.  All  these  are  old.  Modern  Christianity 
has  added  two  more  to  the  list,  the  sciences  of  Education 
and  of  Philanthropy.  And,  to  make  the  whole  complete, 
we  must  end  the  long  catalogue  with  the  science  of  wor- 
ship, that  is,  Heligion. 

In  order  to  refresh  our  memories,  and  keep  perfectly 
distinct  these  different  groups,  with  their  elements,  I  have 
hung  upon  the  wall  the  chart  which  you  see  before  you. 
It  was  a  scheme  constructed  to  classify  the  books  of  a 
large  and  miscellaneous  library.  And  for  practical  use  its 
different  sub-divisions  or  classes  were  distinguished  by  the 
primary  colours  of  the  rainbow,  in  their  natural  order  from 


I.]  OF   THE    SCIENCES.  13 

red  to  violet.  Tiie  backs  of  the  books  were  marked  with 
these  colours,  and  the  cards  on  which  the  titles  of  tne 
books  were  separately  catalogued  were  also  of  correspond- 
ing hues.  But  you  have  probably  already  noticed  that 
instead  of  six  classes,,  the  scheme  upon  the  wall  has  eight ; 
the  first  one,  white,  for  science  as  such,  or  human  know- 
ledge in  the  general ;  the  eighth  one,  violet,  containing  but 
one  name,  and  one  which  I  have  omitted  to  mention  in  my 
foregoing  reraai'ks.  It  is  not  a  science,  properly  speaking, 
yet.  But  you  will  all  perhaps  agree  with  me  that  it  ought 
to  be.  We  may,  however,  well  despair  of  it  when  we  remem- 
ber that  the  greatest  of  fools,  Boswell,  wrote  the  most  de- 
lightful of  biographies.  Yet  it  is  so  far  forth  a  science  that 
it  stands  apart  from  the  rest ;  dealing  not  with  mankind 
as  animals,  nor  with  mankind  as  a  race,  nor  with  mankind 
in  society;  nor  with  man's  life  in  the  studio,  in  the  lecture- 
room,  or  in  the  church  ;  but  with  men,  as  men ;  each  mortal 
by  himself,  sitting  for  his  picture  before  the  lens  of  Truth. 
In  its  intensest  form,  as  Autobiography,  it  is  the  science  of 
one^s  self;  the  summation  of  knowledge,  for  God  is  un- 
knowable, except  as  reflected  in  his  image,  man ;  and 
man^s  individual  life  collates  into  a  personal  history  the 
entire  circle  of  celestial  and  terrestrial  phenomena,  mimick- 
ing like  a  falling  raindrop  the  surrounding  universe. 

In  all  ages,  since  the  invention  of  letters,  attempts  have 
been  made  to  immortalize  the  heroes  and  prophets  of  the 
world  by  writing  out  their  lives ;  and  most  of  the  know- 
ledge of  the  ancient  world  which  remains  to  us,  has  de- 
scended in  the  form  of  biography.  The  pictures  which 
forgotten  scribes  have  painted  of  Moses,  and  Joshua,  and 
David,  and  Isaiah,  and  the  Maccabees,  are  among  the 
most  precious  legacies  of  antiquity.  What  is  more  exciting 
than  the  life  of  Pythagoras  by  lamblicus  ?  or  more  delight- 
ful than  Plutarch's  Lives  of  noble  Greeks  and  Romans  who 
had  lived  before  his  day  ?  Yet  after  all  that  scholars  can 
say  of  them,  the  biographies  of  the  ancients  were  failures, 
in  comparison  with  the  best  of  modern  times,  because  of 
the  meagreness  of  ancient  life,  the  diflSculties  of  inter- 
course, and  above  all,  the  narrow  range  of  ideas,  owing  to 
the  limited  education  of  the  writers. 

In  this,  pre-eminently,  the  difference  shows  itself 
between  ancient  and  modern  days.    IVe  skim  the  ocean  and 


14  ON    THE    CLASSIFICATION  [LBCT. 

devour  the  landj  collecting  facts  by  steam  and  transmitting 
them  by  telegraph.  Thci/  consumed  half  their  lives  in  a 
few  snail-pace  journeys  and  baffling  voyages,  confined 
within  the  compass  of  a  thousand  miles,  a  prey  to  terrify- 
ing accidents,  victims  of  unblushing  falsehood  and  un- 
bounded ignorance.  • 

The  crowd  of  modern  travellers  and  writers  is  so  great 
that  every  lapse  from  honest  observation,  every  mistake  of 
eye  or  ear,  every  inept  construction,  every  misquotation, 
every  false  assumption,  every  distortion  of  word  or  deed 
through  pride  or  prejudice,  every  failure  of  appreciation  by 
stupidity,  every  undue  exaggeration  by  affection,  every 
mistake  of  superstition,  is  sure  to  be  corrected,  almost  as 
soon  as  made. 

But  in  those  ancient  days  the  lonely  priest  went  plod- 
ding on,  year  after  year,  reaching  occasionally  some 
monastic  home  where  he  could  find  a  week^s  or  a  month's 
repose,  as  a  rare  and  welcome  guest  from  foreign  lands. 
And  there  he  heard,  without  the  power  or  wish  to  criticise, 
extraordinary  tales,  incredible  to  modern  minds.  None  had 
been  there  before  him  by  whose  judgment  he  could  guide 
his  own  belief.  He  wrote  all  down.  And  for  a  century, 
perhaps  for  twenty  centuries,  no  traveller  would  follow  him 
to  verify  or  falsify  his  stories.  You  see  how  little  chance 
Sesostris,  Cyrus,  Zoroaster,  or  Lycurgus  had  to  get  their 
biographies  recorded  properly.  But  even  if  the  truth  about 
them  could  have  been  attained  to,  and  even  could  we 
summon  them  in  person  before  our  Niebuhrs,  Macaulays, 
Michelets,  and  Prescotts,  to  be  cross-examined,  on  their 
oath  and  honour,  would  not  each  of  them  be  apt  to  answer 
in  the  words  of  the  knife-grinder  :  'Lord  !  Pve  no  tale  to 
tell,  sir  ! '  For  the  manifold  relations  which  men  of  mark 
and  genius  in  the  nineteenth  century  hold  to  all  depart- 
ments of  art  and  knowledge,  constitute  the  chief  difliculty 
in  the  way  of  writing  their  biographies.  And  at  the  same 
time  this  diflBculty,  well  wrestled  with,  by  men  of  equal 
mark  and  genius,  has  carried  up  the  tone  of  life-writing  to 
the  pitch  at  which  we  have  it. 

Had  there  been  an  Edward  Forbes  in  Plutarch's  day, 
we  should  have  had  a  Wilson  or  a  Geikie  in  Plutarch  to 
describe  him.  For  Nature  is  the  best  Quarter-mastei',  and 
never  hesitates  to  fill  an  order  when  it  is  properly  red- 


^1 


I,]  OP  THE    SCIENCES.  15 

taped.  But  there  could  be  no  Edward  Forbes  in  ancient 
days  for  the  same  reason  that  there  were  no  elephants 
nor  monkeys  in  the  Jurassic  age,  nor  pterodactyles  in  the 
Devonian  era,  nor  lepidodendra  in  Silurian  times.  All 
things  wait  their  turn.  The  genius  of  development  is  a 
fine  scene- shifter.  The  Demiurge  works  leisurely,  and 
hates  to  be  hurried.  Time  is  of  no  account,  but  circum- 
stance is  indispensable.  A  perfect  Biography  requires  a 
type  Man.  Men  are  just  now  beginning  to  write  the  Life 
of  Jesus,  because  the  life  of  Jesus  holds  closer  relationship 
with  the  millennium  than  with  the  middle  or  the  heroic 
ages,  and  demands  for  its  comprehension  the  knowledge 
of  universals,  rather  than  particulars.  The  general  work- 
ing of  his  spirit  upon  and  within  the  constitution  of  the 
world,  had  to  be,  not  tested,  but  testified  by  the  experi- 
ments of  twice  a  thousand  years  before  its  all-embracing 
applicability,  its  never-failing  certainty,  its  infinite  many- 
sidedness  could  be  assented  to  by  science.  Crichton  must 
visit  all  the  courts  and  universities,  and  conquer  in  every 
contest  of  etiquette  or  eloquence,  before  he  can  be  called 
the  Admirable.  And  each  of  the  centuries  is  itself  a  separate 
court  and  university,  at  which  the  growing  humanity  takes 
some  new  degree. 

The  true  science  of  biography  is  professed  by  the  great 
novelists  of  the  day.     We  see  its  growth  in  reading  the 
works  of  Goethe,  and  Scott,  and  Thackeray,  and  Victor  Hugo, 
and  their  thousand  pupils  in  the  divinest  of  all  arts,  the 
picturing  of  human  life.      These  are  the  teachers  of  the 
nineteenth  century.     These  are  the  books  into  which  have 
fallen   the   treasures   of   learning   and   wisdom   of    all   the 
ages.      Christianity,  honour,  pohteness,  wit,  and  humour 
are  taught  now  chiefly   through   novels.      They  are  the 
mirrors  in  which  the   many-sided  power  of  the   modern 
world  contemplates  itself.     Each  man,  each  woman  goes 
to  the  novel  now  to  get  such  glimpses  of  their  inner  life, 
and  their  outward  relations  to    nature  and  mankind,  as 
thrill  them  with  emotions  of  pride  and  love,  plunge  them 
in  remorse,  lift  them  again  with  hope,  confirm  their  fresh- 
born  resolutions,  and  warn  them  against  insidious  dangers. 
The  good  that  Charles  Dickens  has  done  the  world  is  in- 
calculably great.      I  should  rather  be  Charles  Reade  and 
have  written   '  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,'   than  have 


16  ON    THE    CLASSIFICATION  [LECT, 

been  Gibbon,  and  have  written  '  The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire/  One  American  city  now  is  larger  than 
the  whole  Roman  Empire  was  in  the  days  of  its  splendour. 
We  must  measure  matter  spiritually^  to  get  its  just  dimen- 
sions. Compare  Horace  with  Tennyson,  or  Cicero  with 
Sumner,  or  Augustus  Cassar  with  Abraham  Lincoln,  if  you 
wish  to  see  how  the  world  has  grown  in  the  richness  of  its 
relationships,  and  how  the  development  of  man  as  an 
individual  has  kept  pace  with  it.  Barren  enough  would 
be,  even  could  it  be  written,  the  biography  of  an  aboriginal 
savage. 

How  far  backwai-d  we  shall  hereafter  be  able  to  trace 
this  law  of  human  development  it  would  be  rash  for  me, 
or  for  any  other  man,  to  say  with  dogmatism.  Nor  do  I 
desire  to  take  up  the  vexed  question  here  this  evening. 
The  sciences  which  it  has  been  the  object  of  this  lecture  to 
classify  are  not  themselves  sufficiently  developed  to  settle 
it.  Mankind  still  wear  too  disagreeable  a  resemblance  to 
their  apes,  the  quadrumana,  to  argue  it.  From  that  eleva- 
tion which  the  Christian  strives  to  reach,  where  the  last 
trace  of  hog  and  tiger  and  baboon  will  leave  his  nature, 
and  he  shall  rest,  transfigured,  at  his  Master's  feet,  and 
feel  himself  a  worthy  friend  of  angels — perhaps  he  may 
hereafter  look  down,  without  those  uncomfortable  emo- 
tions "which  even  the  fairest  discussion  of  the  origin  of 
man  gives  rise  to  now.  Enough,  that  so  far  as  written 
history  is  concerned,  and  some  dim  glimpses  into  pre-his- 
toric  times  can  be  obtained,  the  laAv  of  human  progi*ess,  of 
social,  mental  and  moral  development  is  a  great  certainty 
on  which  all  our  learned  histories  and  philosophies  are 
based ;  and  without  its  clear  and  consistent  recognition  all 
reference  to  the  early  ages  of  mankind  Avill  be  mere  los- 
ing  ourselves   in    Sorbonian   bogs    and   Hercynian  forests, 

filled  with 

"  Perverse,  all  monstrous,  all  prodigious  things, 
Gorgons,  and  Hydras,  and  Chimeras  dire." 

It  is  my  intention  in  this  course  of  lectures  to  attempt 
to  show  how  far  the  sciences,  as  they  are  now  advanced, 
succeed  in  throwing  light  upon  the  early  history  of  our 
race.  I  do  not  know  that  I  need  make  any  apology  for 
the  choice  of  this  subject  in  preference  to  one  more  strictly 


1 


I.]  OF   THE    SCIENCES.  17 

professional :  although  it  is  by  no  means,  in  the  language 
of  the  world,  a  useful  one.  But  I  feel  sensibly  the  tend- 
ency of  our  times  to  utilitarianism  and  materialism.  I 
think  it  is  wise  sometimes  to  shut  up  shop  and  walk  in  the 
twilight,  and  look  up  at  the  stars,  or  down  upon  the  sea. 
The  end  and  object  of  all  science  is,  not  to  print  calicoes, 
but  to  brighten  up  the  face  of  man.  And  if  the  thought 
of  ages  long  ago  can  breed  within  the  human  heart  one 
sentiment  of  pious  contentment  with  its  lot,  or  one  hope 
of  future  happiness,  or  any  increase  of  that  faith  which 
believes  that  all  things  are  well  ordered  and  sure,  and  work 
together  for  the  good  of  those  that  love  God, — that 
thought  of  ages  long  gone  by  is  useful. 

But  the  mere  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  past  is  favour- 
able to  our  knowledge  of  the  present.  In  no  way  can  we 
better  judge  of  tools  than  by  building  with  them.  I  pur- 
pose in  this  course  of  lectures  to  test  the  temper  of  our 
sciences  to  see  if  they  will  break  on  one  of  the  hardest  of 
all  subjects  of  discussion.  In  doing  this  we  will  pass  in 
review,  as  it  were,  their  capabilities.  This  of  itself  will 
well  repay  our  time. 

The  chief  charm  of  all  such  subjects  as  the  one  I  have 
chosen  lies  in  a  sort  of  super-naturalism  which  floats 
about  them  like  a  haze  ;  tinting  them  purple  and  gold  as 
the  air  at  sunset  tints  the  distant  mountain-tops.  In  our 
daily  life  we  feel  the  hardness  and  roughness  of  matter 
until  our  souls  are  sore  and  faint.  But  when  we  turn  to 
the  far  distant  past  we  feel  this  hard  and  rough  material 
world  melting  and  mixing  with  strange  fancies,  pliant 
laws,  conjectural  processions  of  events,  cloudy  possibili- 
ties, and  over  all  the  bending  form  and  earnest  face  of 
the  All-Father  at  His  work.  So  sang  the  old  Hebrew 
bard  : — '  I  am  Sophia  ;  I  am  the  abstract  wisdom ;  I  was 
with  Him  in  the  beginning,  when  He  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  earth,  and  the  morning  stars  shouted  for  joy.^ 

The  ancient  histories,  hke  the  primary  rocks  of  the 
North,  are  all  rounded  and  polished  and  streaked  and 
beautified  by  the  slow  movements  of  the  Recent  over  them. 
We  may  find  columbines  here  and  there  blooming  in  their 
rifts. 

It  does  us  good  to  cultivate  the  grand  superstitions 
which   are  indigenous   to  that  mountain-land.      What  is 

2 


18  ON    THE    CLASSIFICATION  [lECT. 

sitper-stition  but  the  posture  of  the  human  soul  when  it 
stands  erect  aud  treads  brute  matter  underfoot.  We  talk 
of  our  ^m^e?•- standings  :  Yes — but  what  of  our  owr-stand- 
ings  ?  We  men  of  science  of  the  nineteenth  century  are 
becoming  too  exclusively  men  of  understanding.  *■  I 
will  speak/  said  Paul,  'I  will  speak  with  the  understanding 
and  the  spirit  also.' 

All  I  would  say  in  this  introductory  lecture  is  this  :  that 
I  do  not  believe  in  a  beginning  without  God,  any  more 
than  in  an  end  without  Christ;  and  therefore  you  may  ex- 
pect to  hear  me  treat  all  the  parts  and  details  of  the  in- 
vestigation into  the  early  life  of  mankind  on  the  earth,  not 
only  by  the  rules  of  the  Naturalist,  but  also  in  the  spirit 
of  the  Spiritualist ;  and  with  a  profound  faith  in  Christi- 
anity as  the  blooming  of  the  century-plant. 

The  modern  sciences  conspire  to  prove  that  man  is  an 
animal,  and  that  his  history  is  bound  up  with  the  zoolo- 
gical developments  of  the  remotest  geological  times.  But 
this  does  not  injure  the  discussion  of  his  sjjiritual  faculties 
and  his  immortal  future. 

The  sciences  agree  in  impressing  us  with  man^s  subjec- 
tion to  the  physical  laws  which  are  so  despotic  over  all 
other  departments  of  nature.  But  this  need  not  blind  our 
eyes  to  the  function  of  the  Will ;  to  the  laws  of  right  and 
wrong  j  the  reality  of  responsibility,  and  the  alliance  of 
the  soul  with  superior  natures,  unseen  as  well  as  seen. 

The  sciences  enjoy  together  a  code  of  criticism,  which 
they  make  obligatory  upon  the  student  of  the  past  j  a  code 
too  little  known,  too  long  neglected  by  the  students  of  the 
past.  By  this  criticism  we  will  find  all  written  history 
false  or  defective  ;  and  all  human  language  so  overcharged 
with  the  effete  decomposition  of  ancient  ideas  and  prac- 
tices, as  to  make  philology  rather  a  barrier  against,  than 
an  avenue  towards,  the  knowledge  of  antiquity.  But  on 
the  other  hand,  is  that  to  overthrow  our  faith  in  the 
sublime  traditions  which  we  have  from  those  old  times  ? 
The  light  of  antiquity  streams  into  our  Church  of  the 
Present  through  wonderful  stained  windows — and  is  all 
the  more  ravishingly  beautiful,  and  quite  as  useful  for  all 
that.  While  we  learn  that  no  ancient  Scripture  is  to  be 
believed, — we  learn  also  that  all  ancient  Scripture  is  to 
be  believed.     When  we  turn  towards  the  future  we  see  as 


I.]  OP   THE    SCIENCES.  19 

tlirougli  a  glass  darkly,  but  still  we  see ;  and  all  tliebetterby 
the  nearer  we  bring  our  eyes  to  the  glass  that  stops  our 
vision.  So  when  we  turn  towards  that  other  eternity,  the 
past,  we  see  as  through  a  glass  darkly,  but  still  we  see ; 
and  all  the  better  for  the  criticism  which  has  been  reduced 
to  such  perfection  by  the  labours  of  men  of  science  in  our 
day. 

I  repeat  then,  that  for  the  truthful  and  useful  discussion 
of  the  relations  of  the  modern  sciences  to  the  early  history 
of  man,  it  is  necessary  for  your  lecturer  to  believe  as  pro- 
foundly in  the  essential  and  indestructible  principles  of  the 
Christian  religion  as  in  the  axioms  of  Euclid  or  the  law  of 
chemical  equivalents.  Nor  has  the  slow  progress  of  the 
sciences  of  geology  and  comparative  anatomy  done  more 
to  retard  our  knowledge  of  primeval  antiquity,  than  has 
the  unchristian  state  of  the  theological  and  social  sciences. 

In  my  next  lecture  I  will  illustrate  the  difference  be- 
tween the  ancient  forms  of  knowledge  and  our  modern 
sciences ;  and  show  how  impossible  it  is,  without  the  help 
of  a  cultivated  fancy,  to  investigate  the  natural  history  of 
an  age  of  human  existence,  over  which  an  uncultivated 
fancy  bore  entire  sway. 

In  the  third,  the  fourth,  and  the  fifth  lectures  of  the 
course,  I  will  treat  of  the  antiquity,  the  dignity,  and  the 
unity  of  the  human  race.  I  will  devote  the  sixth  lecture 
to  the  social  life  of  the  ancients.  The  seventh  lecture  will 
be  on  the  orio'in  of  lano^ua^e.  The  eig-hth  on  the  origin 
of  taste  and  the  development  especially  of  architecture. 
In  the  ninth  I  will  give  you  my  theory  of  the  origin  of 
letters  j  the  invention  of  the  alphabet ;  and  the  nature  of 
those  spiritual  fancies  which  became  concrete  in  the 
mythological  traditions  of  the  world.  My  tenth  lecture 
will  treat  of  the  religious  instinct,  and  its  embodiment  in 
ceremonial  worships.  The  eleventh  will  be  devoted  to  what 
I  consider  the  most  ancient  symbolism  of  the  priesthood. 

If  I  make  my  views  clear  to  an  audience  so  exacting  of 
precision  and  completeness  as  this  is  sure  to  be,  it  will  be 
more  than  I  dare  to  hope.  But  at  all  events  I  can  give 
you  some  faint  sketch  of  the  expanse  of  the  knowable 
which  lies  before  the  soul  that  reverently  and  lovingly  un- 
dertakes to  question  Heaven  and  Nature  about  the  begin- 
ning of  its  kind. 


LECTURE  II. 


ON   THE    GENIUS    OP   THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,    ANCIENT   AND 
MODERN. 

In  the  last  lecture  I  gave  you  a  classification  of  the 
modern  sciences  in  eight  groups,  the  first  group  i-epresent- 
ing  science  in  the  general;  and  the  second  group  com- 
prising the  mathematical,  exact  or  physical  sciences  proper. 

My  lecture  this  evening  should  show  you  the  relations 
of  this  second  group  to  the  early  history  of  man.  In  other 
words,  should  answer  the  question,  how  much  information 
the  mathematicians,  the  astronomers,  the  meteorologists, 
the  geodcsists,  or  physical  geographers,  and  the  students 
of  light,  heat,  electricity,  motion,  &c.,  can  give  us  respect- 
ing the  planting  of  human  society  upon  the  earth. 

Not  much.     No  !  not  much.     But  yet  a  little. 

Before  I  recount  this  little,  I  have  something  more,  in- 
troductory, to  say  respecting  the  right  which  modern 
science  has  to  speak  at  all  upon  this  subject ;  a  right,  as 
you  are  probably  well  aware,  denied ;  denied  by  the  pul- 
pit; I  mean,  of  course,  by  the  uneducated  and  more  ig- 
noble part  of  the  pulpit.  Eor  science  has  already  won 
stalwart  champions  from  among  the  clergy ;  and  we  less 
seldom  now  are  forced  to  listen  to  those  storms  of  mingled 
arrogance,  absurdity,  and  bad  taste,  which  formerly  made 
of  the  pulpit  a  very  cave  of  Eolus ;  those  discordant  de- 
nunciations of  dangerous  novelties,  through  the  loud  up- 
roar of  which  were  ever  to  be  more  easily  distinguished 
than  any  other  sounds  the  warning  words  of  Paul  to 
Timothy  :  '  Keep  that  which  is  committed  to  thy  trust, 
avoiding  profane  and  vain  babblings  and  oppositions  of 
science  falsely  so  called,  which  some  professing,  have  erred 
concerning  the  faith.'' 

A  thorough-bred  and  noble-minded  theologian  will  scorn 


ON   THE    GENIUS    OF   THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES.  21 

to  turn  against  himself  this  beautiful  apostrophe  of  the 
philosophic  and  great-minded  apostle,  this  wide  and  ten- 
der appeal  to  the  fresh  heart  of  Christianity  to  keep  itself 
from  the  intellectual  idols  of  that  day,  the  demoralizing 
sophisms  of  Athens,  and  the  crazy  Gnosticism  of  Antioch 
and  Alexandria;  —  against  liis  own  inner  life;  against 
the  education  of  the  19th  century;  against  these  ennobling 
and  refining  sciences  which  have  been  born  of  Christianity 
in  her  best  estate  and  glorify  her  on  earth  as  the  spotless 
robes  of  her  elect  will  glorify  her  in  the  heavens. 

Let  us  comprehend,  then,  before  we  go  one  step  further 
in  this  course,  the  difference  between  the  so-called  science 
of  the  ancients,  of  which  Paul  spoke,  and  the  sciences  of 
modern  times,  which  he  knew  nothing  about. 

They  differ  in  two  respects,  the  most  essential  possible  : 
1,  In  their  genius,  or  animus ;  2,  In  their  method,  or  ap- 
paratus. 

1.  The  genius,  or  animus,  of  the  ancient  science  was 
essentially  fanciful ;  childish ;  cared  little  for  consistency  ; 
was  inexperienced;  preferred  to  believe;  was  impatient 
of  criticism ;  had  no  'purpose  in  its  investigations  ;  no  use 
for  their  results. 

The  spirit  of  modern  science  is  just  the  contrary; — 
practical  and  manly  ;  at  once  critical  and  comprehensive ; 
more  disposed  to  deny  than  to  affirm ;  insists  upon  all 
things  being  put  upon  their  trial ;  rejects  even  truth  her- 
self if  she  stammers  before  the  court ;  cross-examines 
without  pity ;  insists  upon  absolute  consistency ;  is  regard- 
less of  consequences ;  takes  nothing  for  granted;  worships 
cause  and  effect ;  investigates  always  in  the  light  of  some 
hypothesis,  and  applies  every  discovery  instantly  to  use. 

2.  In  the  second  point,  of  Method,  the  difference  is 
equally  patent  to  observation.  The  method  employed  of 
old  was  as  fanciful  as  the  spirit.  The  only  intellectual 
tool  above  the  level  of  their  senses,  which  the  ancients  had 
to  work  with,  was  their  quick  and  fertile  imagination. 
With  this  they  reasoned.  Their  powers  of  observation 
were  fine,  but  they  neither  knew  what  to  look  for  nor  how 
to  correct  false  observations,  nor  how  to  combine  what 
they  knew,  so  as  to  frame  laws  by  which  to  carry  on  the 
work.  What  little  they  got,  the  most  of  it  was  worthless ; 
and  what  was  valuable  they  soon  lost.     There  was  no  con- 


22  GENIUS    OP    THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,  [lECT. 

cert  among  their  sages.  They  washed  the  gravel,  but 
could  not  crush  the  quartz.  They  merely  worked  tho 
out-crops  of  knowledge,  because  they  had  neither  engines 
for  deep  mining,  nor  railways  to  take  away  the  ore,  nor 
furnaces  wherein  to  bring  the  metal  to  nature,  nor  labora- 
tories for  assaying  its  purity.  They  wrote  books,  but 
there  were  no  reviewers.  In  a  word,  true  science  was  as 
impossible  a  product  of  the  human  mind  so  long  as  the 
fancy  fished  and  hunted  through  its  primeval  wilderness, 
as  commerce  and  luxury  and  art  are  impossible  until  the 
invention  of  the  axe,  the  plough^  the  anvil,  and  the  loom 
cause  the  physical  forest  to  disappear  with  its  wild  deni- 
zens, and  farmers,  artisans,  and  townsmen  to  take  their 
place. 

The  whole  story  is  told  in  one  sentence,  when  we  say 
that  modern  science  replaces  Fancy  by  Experiment.  Its 
whole  profession  is  inquisitorial.  It  tortures  the  dumb 
truth.  To  say  what  you  can  prove  is  the  only  passport  to 
its  favour.  None  of  your  suppositions,  is  the  only  response 
it  deigns  to  give  the  sciolist.  It  is  harder  on  contractors 
than  any  army-inspector  at  Springfield.  It  cares  for  no 
expense  in  renewing  and  improving  its  machinery,  and 
keeps  selling  off  its  condemned  material  to  charlatans. 
'Be  sure  you  are  right;  then  go  ahead,*  is  its  favourite 
saying.  It  may  wink  at  the  fancies  or  inaccuracies  of  a 
favourite  over-night,  but  woe  be  to  him  in  the  morning  ! 
With  its  whole  soul  modern  science  hates  idols — those 
that  Lord  Bacon  classified,  and  all  others, — and  despises 
hero  worship.  It  encourages  predictions  as  stimulants, 
but  murders  the  prophet  whose  vision  comes  not  to  pass ; 
yet  it  has  great  patience  when  the  prophecy  is  both  very 
new  and  very  grand. 

You  will  notice  then  that  the  great  distinction  between 
ancient  and  modern  science  is  this  :  that  the  former  was 
the  product  of  undisciplined  fancy,  and  the  latter  is  the 
prodvict  of  careful,  repeated,  and  systematic  experiment; 
simply  the  difference  between  conjecture  and  knowledge. 
For  fancy  and  experiment  are  the  two  poles  on  which  the 
world  of  human  knowledge  turns.  Or,  to  change  the 
simile,  fancy  is  the  steam  which  lifts  the  piston-rod  of 
intellectual  progress ;  experiment,  the  guides  in  which  it 
moves. 


^ 


II.]  ANCIENT   AND   MODERN.  23 

Now  let  me  apply  these  ideas  to  the  first  member  of  the 
group  of  mathematical  sciences  with  which  wo  are  dealing 
to-night ;  the  science  of  numbers.  It  affords  us  a  fine 
illustration  of  the  difference  between  ancient  and  modern 
science.  I  do  not  speak  just  now  of  the  aboriginal  ideas 
of  numbers  which  the  earliest  tribes  of  men  obtained  in 
their  savage  state.  I  shall  speak  of  that  directly.  And  I 
use  the  term  '  ancients  ^  in  its  common  sense,  meaning  the 
classical  ancients,  of  whose  life  and  doings  we  have  some 
traditional  history. 

The  ancients  invented  arithmetic  and  geometry,  but  the 
moderns  have  possessed  themselves  of  that  all-powerful 
apparatus  of  investigation,  the  differential  calculus.  The 
ancients  had  a  fanciful  or  superstitious  reverence  for  num- 
bers, believing  them  to  embody  an  occult  and  feai-ful  magic, 
accordiug  to  which  the  universe  was  originally  created,  and 
under  the  influence  of  which  all  life  was  thought  to  move. 
The  moderns  love  numbers,  because  by  them  they  can  work 
out  in  a  reasonable  and  precise  manner  both  the  darkest 
and  the  noblest  problems  of  creation — the  distance  of  the 
stars,  the  weight  of  the  planets,  the  velocity  of  light,  the 
composition  of  matter,  the  progress  of  population,  the  rate 
of  insurance  on  life  and  property.*  The  mathematics  of  the 
ancients-  could  produce  nothing  higher  than  astrology ; 
that  of  the  moderns  has  produced  astronomy,  meteorology, 
geodesy.  Its  last  and  crowning  triumph  has  been  the 
establishment  of  the  law  of  the  '  convertibility  of  forces,^ 
by  which  we  now  know  that  not  the  smallest  portion  of  the 
universe  is  ever  lost ;  that  motion,  when  it  stops,  becomes 
so  much  light  and  heat ;  that  light  and  heat,  when  they 
distribute  themselves,  supply  to  nature  an  equal  quantity 
of  electricity  or  galvanism  ;  that  galvanism  becomes  mag- 
netism; and  that  magnetism  gives  place  again  to  motion. 
Did  St  Paul  mean  to  say  that  all  tlxis  is  '  science  falsely  so 
called '  ?  Is  this  the  yycoo-t?  that  he  denounced  so  vehe- 
mently, as  opposing  itself  to  all  that  Jesus  Christ  had  given 
him  to  hold  in  trust  until  he  should  come  again  to  judge 
the  world  in  righteousness  ?     I  trow  not. 

Let  me  call  up  before  your  imagination  that  great  vision 

*  The  truthfulness,  the  reverence  of  exact  statement  and  description, 
which  distinguishes  tlie  occidental  from  the  oriental  man,  may  be  deduced, 
perhaps,  rather  from  this  iutlueuce  than  from  any  other  source. 


24  GENIDS    OP    THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,  [lECT. 

wliicL.  stood  to  tlie  ancient  pliilosopliic  world  for  tlie  sum 
of  all  speculatiou  upon  the  Avay  God  made  the  worlds.  It 
was  their  yvccxns ;  the  doctrine  of  the  Gnostic  or  Oriental 
world.  I  leave  you  to  judge  yourselves  how  much  science 
there  was  in  it ;  and  how  wisely,  seeing  its  intense,  proud, 
irreconcilable  opposition  to  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  Paul 
warned  his  followers  not  to  be  seduced  from  their  holy 
faith  by  it.  In  one  form  or  other  the  whole  matheniatico- 
physical  science  of  the  ancient  world  consisted  in  this  cos- 
mogony.    It  stated  its  fanciful  principles  thus  : — 

1.  That  matter  and  spirit  are  the  two  hostile  elements  of 
the  universe. 

2.  That  there  can  be  no  intimate  intei'course  between 
the  Absolute,  pure  spirit,  God,  and  the  Material,  gross, 
vile,  sin-producing,  chaotic,  rebellious,  and  insane  stuff  out 
of  which  bodies  are  made. 

3.  That  therefore  the  universe  must  have  resulted  from 
the  existence  and  operations  of  energies  or  intelligences 
holding  an  intermediate  place  between  the  Absolute  and 
the  Material,  filling  up  or  bridging  over  the  awful  chasm 
between  God  and  Matter. 

Upon  these  assumptions,  and  this  comprehensive  syllo- 
gism, a  thousand  fanciful  philosophers  erected  their  cos- 
mogonies ;  like  the  cathedrals  of  the  middle  ages,  all  dif- 
ferent, but  all  belonging  to  one  style  ;  some  smaller  and 
plainer,  others  imposing  for  their  immensity,  bewilderingly 
complicated,  and  covered  over  with  elaborate  ornamenta- 
tion. The  central  idea  of  all  of  them  was  that  of  emana- 
tion. Eons  came  forth  from  the  Divine  essence  as  deftly 
and  numerously  various  as  ribbons  from  a  juggler's  mouth. 
Down  slid  the  long  Jacob's  ladder,  with  an  angel  or  arch- 
angel standing  upon  every  rung,  until  its  foot  touched 
and  rested  firm  upon  the  mass  of  crudity  to  be  informed. 
High  at  its  summit  stood,  waving  her  wings,  the  Celestial 
Sophia,  and  at  its  foot  the  Demiourgos  or  Creator  of  the 
earth,  the  Jewish  Jehovah,  with  face  downcast,  and  brawny 
arms,  the  Terrestrial  Sophia  always  by  his  side.  And  this 
was  the  most  advanced  philosophical  statement  of  the 
origin  of  men  and  things  that  the  science  of  the  ancients 
ever  succeeded  in  making;  and  modern  science  can  detect 
in  it  neither  rhyme  nor  reason,  because  it  was  neither  based 
on  observation,  nor  calculation,  nor  experiment. 


II.]  ANCIENT    AND    MODERN.  25 

Let  me  set  before  you  now  another  and  far  different 
picture.  That  was  'science  falsely  so  called;'  this  is 
true  science.  It  may  not  be  scientific  truth,  for  its  de- 
monstration has  not  yet  been  completed.  But  it  is  true 
science  for  all  that ;  because  it  is  the  product  of  a  Fancy 
disciplined,  mathematical,  experimental,  and  observant. 
I  allude  of  course  to  the  Nebular  Hypothesis. 

The  Nebular  Hypothesis  is  to  us  modern  naturalists 
what  the  gnostic  cosmogonies  were  to  the  cabbalists  of 
yore,  and  is  illustrated  in  a  perfect  manner  by  the  genius  of 
modern  science.  It  has  swelled  rapidly  to  its  present  pro- 
portions by  insensible  degrees ;  by  yearly  accessions  of 
facts,  discovered  and  recorded  in  the  different  departments 
of  inquiry.  Its  constitution  is  purely  mathematical. 
Grant  its  one  postulate, — That  space  was  originally  full  of 
homogeneous  matter  obedient  to  the  laws  of  physics — and 
its  whole  argument  follows  logically  to  the  close ;  and  it 
accounts  for  everything  we  see  and  know  about  the  visible 
world.  And  this  first  postulate  is  strictly  reasonable ; 
even  if  it  turn  out  in  the  end  not  to  have  been  true ;  for 
1,  It  agrees  with  all  experimental  observation  as  thus  far 
made ;  and  2,  It  is  based  upon  a  set  of  observations  of  its 
own.  I  mean  the  observations  of  telescopic  nebulte. 
Nor  can  it  be  finally  disproved  and  laid  aside  until  more 
powerful  telescopes  shall  have  been  made  to  resolve  into 
separate  stars  the  last  remaining  nebula.  And  even  then 
the  a  pnori  possibility  stands  good.  Saturn's  rings  will 
continue  to  discuss  the  question  with  any  comet  that  may 
happen  to  drop  in. 

Emanation  was  the  genius  of  the  old  cosmogony ; 
Erolution  is  the  genius  of  the  nebular  hypothesis.  It 
paints  the  universe  as  either  at  first  created  an  infinite 
mist  of  unequally  distributed  elemental  atoms;  or  else  as, 
at  stated  intervals,  becoming  such.  It  sees  great  move- 
ments beginning,  or  re-beginning,  in  this  unformed  but 
living  infinite ;  centres  of  growing  aggregation  ;  and  tend- 
encies towards  those  centres.  It  calculates  the  conse- 
quences of  these  tendencies,  and  proves  that  great  gyra- 
tions must  result  fi'om  them.  It  shows  how  the  laws  of 
heat  will  bring  about  consolidation  ;  and  how  the  laws  of 
motion  will  effect  at  first  a  ring  and  then  a  planetary- 
system,  in  each  vortex,  throughout  infinite  space.     Thus 


26  GENIUS    OP   THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,  [lECT. 

stars  and  suns,  nebulae  and  comets,  earths  and  their  satel- 
lites, appear  upon  the  scene;  each  with  its  proper 
motions  j  each  destined  to  work  out  a  diflferent  history, 
according  to  its  circumstances.  Then  it  takes  up  our 
solar  system,  and  calculates,  and  weighs,  and  keeps  per- 
petual watch  upon  it.  It  suspects  the  existence  of  an 
extra  member  of  the  system,  and  by  pure  dint  of  numbers 
finds  it.  It  proves  the  molecular  discreteness  of  Saturn^s 
rings,  and  the  aqueous  character  of  the  envelopes  of 
Jupiter  and  Mars.  It  invents  the  thermo-electric  pile,  and 
proves  that  the  sun's  spots  are  not  so  hot  as  the  rest  of 
its  face,  and  that  the  body  of  the  moon  is  as  utterly  cold 
as  space  itself.  It  invents  the  spectroscope,  and  makes 
out  with  it  five  of  our  metals  in  the  sun,  and  two  of  them 
in  Sirius.  Then  it  takes  up  our  earth,  and  shows  how 
once  it  more  than  filled  the  entire  orbit  of  the  moon,  first 
throwing  ofi"  a  ring  which  became  our  moon,  and  finally 
condensing  to  its  present  form,  a  globe  of  lava,  with  a 
crust  of  rock,  a  skin  of  water,  and  an  envelope  of  air. 
It  sketches  out  the  story  of  this  crust:  how  its  first  flakes 
emerged  and  joined,  and  were  re-enforced  and  thickened 
from  below,  compressed,  turned  up,  re-melted  and  re-form- 
ed :  how  a  steady  torrent  of  hot  acid  waters  rained  down 
constantly  upon  all  portions  of  this  forming  crust,  disin- 
tegrating it  as  fast  as  it  was  consolidated,  and  flying  np 
again  in  steam,  to  carry  off  its  heat  into  surrounding 
space:  how  in  due  course  of  time  the  seas  became  cool 
enough  to  retain  both  their  waters  and  the  alkaline  and 
acid  sediments  which  they  brought  into  it :  how  the 
chlorates  and  carbonates  of  the  land  changed  partners 
when  they  reached  the  sea,  and  formed  the  salt  which 
gives  it  sweetness,  and  the  dolomite  which  made  its  an- 
cient bed  :  and  how,  as  time  went  on,  changing  the  pro- 
portions and  relations  of  terrestrial  elements,  form  after 
form  of  life  appeared,  each  suitable  to  the  exact  amount  of 
heat  or  cold,  of  light  or  darkness,  moisture  or  drought, 
acidity  or  alkalinity  of  its  place  of  birth,  and  changing  then 
to  something  else,  or  something  better,  when  it  could  no 
longer  live  a  life  conformable  to  its  own  nature ;  each  form 
superior  to  the  one  preceding  it ;  until  at  last  man  came, 
to  find  a  world  grown  firm  enough  to  live  on,  cooled  to  the 
temperate  point,  soiled,  shaded,  lighted,  watered  properly. 


n.]  ANCIENT   AND    MODERN.  27 

sprinkled  with  gold  and  precious  stones,  inlaid  with  iron 
and  brass,  and  Hoating  through  what  is  to  him  a  finished 
universe. 

Have  we  not  here  a  procession  of  realities,  where  before 
we  had  a  mist  of  dreams  filled  with  the  fantastic  gibbering 
of  ghosts  ?  That  is  just  the  distinction  between  the  ancient 
Gnosis,  and,  in  a  less  degree,  all  ancient  knowledge,  and 
the  modern  sciences. 

Let  me  now  turn  your  attention  to  the  same  strong  con- 
trast between  ancient  and  modern  thought  which  the  prac- 
tical application  of  these  cosmological  ^dews  exhibit.  I 
mean  the  application  of  the  old  Gnostic  theories  to  the 
practice  of  astrology,  and  the  applications  of  modern  astro- 
nomical science  to  the  discovery  of  the  laws  of  climate,  to 
the  practice  of  navigation,  and  to  the  measurement  of  land, 
forming  what  we  call  the  sciences  of  Physical  Geography, 
Navigation,  Geodesy,  and  Civil  Engineering. 

The  essential  element  of  the  contrast  still  is,  that  the  one 
is  a  system  of  fancy,  the  other  a  system  of  facts.  The  one 
exercised  habitually  a  cruel  power  over  the  lives  of  men  by 
its  claims  to  magic;  the  other  blesses  mankind,  not  only 
with  the  purest  lessons  of  universal  law  and  order,  but  with 
comfort  in  the  house,  and  safety  on  the  sea. 

Take  a  well-known  example  from  the  history  of  the 
founding  of  the  Christian  Church.  In  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  we  read  that,  at  Ephesus,  an  uproar  threatened 
tbe  best  part  of  its  citizens  with  fire  and  sword  for  doubt- 
ing that  the  stone,  which  the  worst  part  worshipped,  fell 
from  Jupiter.  It  would  be  hard  to  raise  a  riot  now-a-days, 
in  Washington,  by  any  story  our  astronomers  could  tell 
about  the  great  ring-meteorite  which  forms  the  central  ob- 
ject of  attraction  in  the  Museum  of  the  Smithsonian  Insti- 
tution. Chauncey  Wright  calculated  that  five  millions  of 
these  bodies  strike  the  outer  stratum  of  our  atmosphere 
every  day ;  and  that  the  major  part  of  them,  driven  by 
their  own  or  the  earth's  velocity  to  various  depths  in  it, 
are  triturated,  smelted,  evaporated,  distributed  by  the 
winds,  and  slowly  settle  to  increase  the  size  of  the  earth. 
An  occasional  larger  mass,  becoming  incandescent  only  on 
its  outside,  throws  ofi"  a  cloud  of  volatilized  matter  as  it 
passes  through  the  atmosphere,  and  then  resumes  its  dark, 
cold  flight  through  space — space  that  is  full  of  such.    Now 


28  GENIUS    OF    THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,  [lECT. 

and  then  one  hits  the  earth  in  its  orbit  so  fairly  that  it 
succeeds  in  reaching  the  bottom  of  the  atmosphere,  and 
buries  itself  in  the  soil,  or  in  the  broad  expanse  of  the 
ocean.  In  the  old  days  of  astrology  men  would  have  built 
a  temple  over  it,  and  organized  a  priesthood  for  its  worship, 
and  regulated  politics  by  its  magnetic  auguries ;  but  in  our 
days  of  astronomy,  the  finder  cuts  it  up  into  pieces  and 
sells  them  for  five  dollars  a-piece,  to  be  labelled  and  stowed 
away  in  cabinets  with  bottled  tarantulas,  Indian  arrow- 
heads, and  coprolites  from  the  chalk. 

One  perhaps  is  powwowed  over  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Meteorological  Society,  where  an  interesting  paper  is  i-ead 
by  Mr  A.  on  the  observed  height,  length,  direction,  ve- 
locity, and  luminousness  of  the  meteor^s  flight,  as  seen 
from  half-a-dozen  small  villages  in  different  parts  of  the 
country;  and  another  piece  may  form  the  subject,  per- 
haps, at  a  meeting  of  the  Chemical  Society,  of  an  equally 
instructive  paper  by  Mr  B.,  showing  the  probable  consti- 
tution of  the  meteor,  from  a  careful  analysis  of  the  frag- 
ment ;  disclosing  the  presence  of  so  much  iron,  so  much 
nickel,  so  much  schreibersite,  with  remarkable  traces  of 
carbon;  suggesting  the  possible  existence  of  unknown 
organisms,  whether  animal  or  vegetable  the  author  cannot 
say,  upon  the  planetic  body  of  which  this  meteor  seems  to 
have  formed  a  part.  A  third  perhaps  goes  over  to  Vienna, 
where,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Imperial  Academy,  the  vener- 
able Herr  Hoffrath  Haidinger  draws  attention  to  certain 
impressions,  as  it  were  of  human  fingers,  in  the  at-one- 
time  plastic  mass,  but  only  at  one  end,  and  shows  that  the 
end  so  marked  must  have  been  the  backside  of  the  meteor 
as  it  flew,  behind  which,  as  in  a  ship's  wake  just  abaft  the 
rudder-post,  an  eddy  of  incandescent  air  and  gases  had 
been  formed,  reducing  the  metal  to  plasticity  and  leaving 
upon  it  these  impressions  ;  at  the  same  time  he  shows  how 
the  solid  banking  up  of  the  air  in  front  of  this  frightful 
projectile  must  have  brought  its  forward  career  to  a  sud- 
den stop,  when  the  eartVs  gravity  would  take  efiect  and 
bring  it,  almost  at  a  right  angle,  to  the  ground. 

Such  are  the  two  diflerent  ways  in  which  ancient  and 
modern  science  would  treat  the  objects  of  science,  show- 
ing always  the  same  preponderance  of  a  helpless  and 
therefore  fearful  fancy  on  the  one  side,  and  of  a  bold  and 


n 


II.]  ANCIENT    AND    MODKRN.  29 

powerful  criticism  on  the  other.  The  human  race  waa 
placed  upon  the  earth  at  the  same  disadvantage  through 
ignorance  which  prevents  a  traveller  from  sleeping  the 
first  night  he  spends  in  a  strange  inn.  The  human  heart 
grows  timid  in  the  dark^  while  familiarity  with  the  obscure 
"breeds  contempt.  The  human  race  regard  old  heathen 
terrors  now  with  the  same  nonchalance  with  which  a 
family  born  under  its  roof  hear  noises  in  a  haunted 
house ;  or  rather  -with  that  staunch,  earnest,  watchful  in- 
telligence with  which  an  engine-driver  walks  round  and 
round  his  well-regulated  and  thoroughly  comprehended, 
yet  tremendous   machine. 

You  will  not  of  course  mistake  my  meaning  so  far  as 
to  imagine  that  I  contrast  the  ancient  and  the  modern 
worlds  !  I  am  only  contrasting  the  ancient  gnosis  with 
modern  science.  Superstitions  of  the  lowest  kind  still 
fill  the  earth.  I  speak  of  the  genius  of  the  learned  world. 
The  same  uncultivated  fancy  keeps  alive  in  our  day,  among 
the  uneducated  classes  and  races  of  men,  astrological  and 
all  other  ancient  absurdities.  They  float  daily  to  us  across 
the  Atlantic,  like  cloud-rack,  to  be  absorbed  and  made  to 
vanish  in  the  clear,  dry  intellectual  air,  which,  thank  God, 
we  were  born  to  breathe.  The  education  of  the  world  as 
a  whole  has  hardly  yet  commenced.  It  might  well  strike 
us  with  astonishment  to  see  a  2<?eZ/-educated  world  fight- 
ing for  slavery  instead  of  for  liberty,  reeling  with  drunk- 
enness, reekiug  with  squalid  vice,  roaring  with  obscene 
profanity,  as  so  much  of  ours  does  !  No,  we  are  simply 
considering  the  contrast  between  the  intellectual  condition 
and  habits  of  the  philosophic  world  as  it  existed  a  few 
thousand  years  ago,  with  what  its  intellectual  habits  are 
now ;  and  what  is  the  actual  Christian  value  of  the  science 
of  nearly  the  entire  population  of  these  Northern  States,  of 
Scotland,  Switzerland,  and  Prussia,  of  the  upper  classes 
in  England,  France,  and  Italy,  and  in  fact  of  the  wealthy 
everywhere. 

About  six  months  ago  a  letter,  addressed  to  me  in  Bos- 
ton, reached  me,  I  know  not  by  what  means,  through  the 
OflSce  in  Philadelphia.  It  had  been  written  by  some 
motherly  body  down  in  Maine,  and  enclosed  an  old  one- 
dollar  bill.  It  gave  the  hoiir  and  minute  of  the  woman's 
birth,  and  begged  me  to  retm-n  the  horoscope  in  diagram. 


30  GENIUS   OF   THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES^  [lECT. 

with  tlie  prediction  founded  on  -  its  figure.  And  in  a 
touching  little  postscript,  as  badly  spelled  and  written  as 
tlie  letter  itself,  she  added  the  birth-date  of  her  favourite 
son,  and  begged  me  to  include  his  fortune  in  her  own. 

Now  it  is  a  very  curious  question  :  on  what  principle  the 
notion  of  the  government  of  human  fortune  by  the  stars 
could  have  been  so  early,  widely,  and  permanently  estab- 
lished. The  idea  of  cause  and  effect,  or  of  antecedence 
and  consequence,  not  to  go  into  its  metaphysical  dis- 
cussion, seems  inherent  in  intelligence.  Even  the  lower 
animals  exhibit  it.  The  reason  why  our  ponies  are  alarmed 
at  wheelbarrows  and  dummy  engines  is  evidently  because 
they  cannot  comprehend  how  anything  can  go  unless  it  be 
preceded  by  a  horse.  They  seem  to  be  infected  with  the 
same  horror  of  the  prodigious  which  we  would  tremble 
under  were  we  to  observe  St  Denis  marching  off  from 
martyrdom  with  his  head  under  his  arm.  Our  savage  an- 
cestors never  became  intellectually  reconciled  to  an  eclipse 
of  the  sun  or  of  the  moon  because  they  could  suggest  no 
benevolent  cause  for  it ;  it  seemed  to  them  like  some 
deadly  swooning  of  a  father  or  a  mother,  threatening 
themselves  with  orphanage.  The  Avorship  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  must  have  borne  exact  proportion  to  the  daily  and 
nightly  benefits  they  bestowed  upon  mankind.  At  the 
equator  the  sur^  was  an  enemy,  at  the  poles  a  friend.  The 
Arab  addressed  his  praises  to  '  the  great  rock  in  a  weary 
land  '  because  it  protected  him  from  the  solar  rays.  The 
Scandinavian,  on  the  contrary,  watched  the  declining  sun 
from  June  to  December  with  undisguised  anxiety,  erected 
slanting  dolmens  to  detect  the  first  certainty  of  its  ap- 
proaching return ;  and  when  assured  that  its  face  was  once 
more  set  towards  their  habitations,  over  which  their  enemy 
the  snow  had  already  begun  to  heap  itself,  they  dragged 
the  yule  log  to  the  hearth,  and  danced  and  sang  and  drank 
the  grand  carouse  of  all  the  year,  making  the  frozen  air 
resound  with  their  Christmas  carols  under  the  mistletoe, 
long  before  Christ  was  born,  or  a  mass  had  ever  been  said 
in  honour  of  the  Sun  of  Eighteousness.  The  celebrated 
contest  between  sun-worship  and  pyramid-  or  water-wor- 
ship which  characterized  a  part  of  the  monumental  history 
of  Egypt  was  a  conflict  of  sentiment  between  the  equatorial 
and   the   polar   zones,    the   iconoclastic    sun-worshippers 


II.  J  ANCIENT   AND    MODERN.  31 

coming  into  the  valley  of  the  Nile  from  the  mountains  of 
Armenia  and  the  distant  steppes  of  Scythia,  at  the  close  of 
the  14th*  dynasty,  2000  years  more  or  less  B.C.,  as  tliey  did 
again  under  Cambyses  about  the  year  500  B.C.,  and  again, 
to  take  permanent  possession,  as  the  Turks  of  the  13th  f 
century  of  the  Christian  era,  long  after  the  old  sun-worship 
had  been  exchanged  for  the  rational  religion  of  Mahommed. 

In  like  manner  the  worship  of  the  moon  must  have 
sprung  from  that  dependence  on  her  lovely  light  which  was 
inevitable  in  an  age  of  forests,  when  men  had  neither 
lamps  nor  clocks  to  live  by,  and  were  surrounded  by  such 
wild  beasts  as  bows  and  arrows  could  do  little  to  offend, 
lions  and  tigers,  hyasnas,  auroxen,  and  the  great  horned 
Irish  elk,  wolves  and  wild  boars,  and  the  immense  cave 
bear,  the  elephant,  and  the  rhinoceros. 

Without  the  waxing  and  waning  moon  man  would  have 
taken  no  account  of  time ;  no  weeks,  no  months,  nothing 
but  the  long  cycle  of  the  year.  The  idea  of  sequence  was 
bound  up  with  the  moon  ;  she  became  the  goddess  of  or- 
der, made  story-telling  possible,  and  lovers'  assignations, 
and  parliaments.  On  the  worship  of  the  moon  the  whole 
Druidic  system  of  law,  as  well  as  ceremonial,  leaned ;  and 
when  its  canons  were  abrogated  and  its  usages  were  sup- 
pressed by  Chi'istianity,  they  still  continued  to  exist  as 
popular  superstitions.  The  majority  of  farmers,  to  this 
very  day,  regulate  their  planting  and  felling  of  timber, 
their  pruning  and  grafting,  by  the  phases  of  the  moon ; 
while  their  wives  in  the  kitchen  would  find  all  their  yarn 
untwist,  and  all  their  soap  go  back,  unless  they  consulted 
the  almanac. 

In  one  or  two  instances  modern  experimental  science  has 
actually  reinforced  the  ancient  superstitious  observance  of 
the  moon.  It  is  now  well  understood  that  young  plants, 
like  human  babies,  must  have  plenty  of  rest.     If  they  shoot 

*  Mariette  (Aperju,  &c.,  1867)  accounts  for  the  lack  of  monuments  of 
the  15th  and  16th  dynasties  by  the  invasion  of  the  Hyksos.  Bunseu 
agrees  that  they  came  in  with  the  'ith  king  of  the  13th  dynasty,  but  they 
did  not  become  legitimate  sovereigns  until  the  37th  dynasty.  See  Renan, 
quoted  below  at  the  beginning  of  the  6th  lecture.)  The  actual  solar  disc 
fanatic  who  did  the  mischief  was  jun-aten,  who  followed  Thutmosis  I. 
,  of  the  17th  dynasty,  his  mother  being  a  foreigner. — Indigenous  Races, 
Gliddon,  1857,  p.  il6. 

t  The  Turkish  dynasty  of  Ottoman  sultans  commenced  in  1258. 


32  GENIUb    OP    THE   PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,  [lECT. 

up  from  the  seed  iu  the  waning  of  the  moon  they  enjoy 
the  repose  of  long,  dark  nights ;  if  in  the  growing  moon, 
their  young  life,  over-stimulated,  perishes,  or  suffers  dete- 
rioration more  or  less.  The  latest  observations  make  it  cer- 
tain that  the  sun-heat  reflected  from  the  full-moon^s  face  is 
sufficient  to  dispel  clouds,  and  it  must  modify,  therefore, 
notably  the  climate  of  the  kitchen-garden.  One  of  the 
most  brilliant  astronomical  discoveries  of  the  last  ten  years 
is  that  of  the  so-called  Eleven-Year  Cycle,  during  which 
Jupiter  aud  the  other  planets  alternately  collect  upon  one 
side  of  the  sun,  and  then  at  other  times  disperse  themselves 
around  it ;  producing,  in  the  one  case,  an  abundant  supply 
of  spots  upon  the  sun's  disc,  with  a  corresponding  lowering 
of  the  climate  of  the  earth ;  and,  in  the  other  case,  the  dis- 
persion and  disappearance  of  spots,  and  a  higher  mean 
temperature  for  the  earth. 

These  are  merely  instances  showing  how  the  instinct  of 
man  may  sometimes  anticipate  the  final  deductions  of  his 
reasoning  faculties ;  and  we  are  thus  taught  to  despise 
nothing,  not  even  the  follies  of  superstition. 

Still  less  ought  we  to  despise  the  ancient  worships  of  the 
sun  and  moon,  inasmuch  as  our  own  notorious  irreligion  is 
due  to  an  insensibility  to  the  benefits  which  we  receive  all 
the  time  and  on  all  sides  from  Nature,  caused  by  our  mo- 
dern mastership  of  Nature.  The  slave-holder  feels  no  gra- 
titude to  his  slave ;  the  magician  cannot  worship  the  devils 
who  do  his  bidding  ;  therefore  I  have  always  thought  that 
the  poet  only  showed  his  ignorance  of  human  nature  and  of 
the  tendencies  of  natural  science,  when  he  wrote — 'The 
undevout  astronomer  is  mad  ['  Ignorance  has  always  been 
the  mother  of  devotion.  The  man  who  can  hold  the  solar 
system  in  his  fist,  and  measure  and  weigh  it  with  his  scale 
and  compasses,  and  predict  with  accurate  certainty  what 
its  cha*nged  aspect  will  be  a  hundred  thousand  years  be- 
yond the  term  of  his  own  appointed  career  upon  the  earth 
— this  man  may  worship  his  wife,  his  emperor,  his  coun- 
try's flag,  his  science,  justice  and  honour,  and  the  Great 
God  of  the  invisible  universe ;  but  certainly  not  any  hea- 
venly object,  nor  even  God  on  account  of  the  mere  wonders 
of  His  sky. 

But  in  old  times  it  was  not  so.  The  procession  of  planets 
went  on  to  and  fro  with  the  myster)-  and  grandeur  of  a 


II.]  ANCIENT   AND    MODERN.  33 

procession  of  priests ;  and  was  so  worshipped.  The  myste- 
rious pole-star  was  the  savage  man's  best  friend,  and  the 
sailor's  also.  The  dog-star,  rising  as  the  sun  went  down, 
just  when  the  blessed  inundation  of  the  Nile  promised  a 
harvest  for  the  coming  year,  came  in  of  course  for  a  large 
share  of  Egyptian  love  and  reverence.  Shepherds  of 
Persia  and  Arabia  had  nothing  else  to  do,  whole  nights, 
whole  years,  whole  lifetimes,  but  to  watch  and  wonder  at 
the  many-coloured,  slowly-shifting  stars.  They  saw  the 
satellites  of  Jupiter  without  a  telescope  ;  and  by  dividing 
up  a  few  hundred  revolutions  of  each  satellite  by  the  num- 
ber of  nights  of  observation,  they  could  arrive  at  its  rate 
of  motion  to  a  minute  of  time.  The  strange  diversity  of 
names  given  to  the  constellations,  the  utter  absence  of 
any  harmonious  system  in  the  zodiac  or  out  of  it,  the 
purely  fanciful  and  oftentimes  inexplicable  groupings  of 
the  principal  stars,  all  go  to  show  how  many  minds  in 
how  many  ages  helped  the  old  astrology  to  assume  the 
shape  in  which  we  know  it  now. 

Comets  were  a  terror  to  the  ancients  because  their 
shape  suggested  war,  and  their  flaming  glare  pestilence, 
rushing  through  the  sky  like  warriors  with  dishevelled 
hair,  and  always  at  some  epoch  of  convulsion,  either 
during  the  invasion  of  some  bloody  conqueror,  or  at  the 
death  of  some  great  leader.  Volcanoes  were,  for  the  same 
reason,  or  rather  by  the  construction  of  the  same  unin- 
structed  fancy,  made  the  abodes  of  malignant  deities,  per- 
sonifications of  those  forces  of  nature  not  yet  subjugated 
by  man's  intellect.  High  mountain-peaks,  the  inaccessible 
thrones  of  ice  and  snow,  sources  of  thunder  and  lightning, 
avalanches,  and  devastating  floods,  became  the  homes  of 
other  gods,  the  enemies  rather  than  the  friends  of  man. 
But,  above  all,  the  all-devouring  ocean  inspired  terror  in 
the  human  breast,  and  this  teiTor  generated  some  of  the 
\Wdest-spread  superstitions  connected  with  the  ancient 
mythologies.  Serpent-worship  and  Siva-worship  and 
devil-worship  in  general  can  be  distinctly  traced  to  it,  as 
I  will  show  in  a  future  lecture.  The  ship  which  carried 
man,  and  the  stars  which  guided  him  across  the  trackless 
sea,  became  personified  into  his  favouring  *  deities,   and 

*  '  If,  most  venerable  man !  it  is  a  disgrace  and  sin  to  forget  God,  it 
is  also  a  stain  upon  the  virtue,  and  a  dishonour  upon  the  judgment,  of 

3 


34  GENIUS   OP   THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,  [lECT. 

thus  astrology  linked  itself  with  physical  geography,  as 
astronomy  has  done  in  our  day   to  much  better  pui-pose. 

Let  me  touch,  in  passing,  upon  the  curious  etymology  of 
the  word  '  star/  It  is  supposed  to  be  explained  by  a 
Sanscrit  root  signifying  to  stand,  in  Latin  stare,  alluding, 
of  course,  to  the  immovable  positions  of  the  stars.  But 
the  use  of  the  star- shaped  diagram  in  astrology  suggests 
another  idea.  The  word  for  mountain  is  tor,  expressed  in 
writing  by  a  triangle,  our  letter  D,  the  Greek  A.*  The 
symbolic  star  with  six  points  (for  the  heraldic  star  with 
five  points  is  not  a  star  at  all,  but  a  mullet  or  spur),  was 

made  by  crossing  two  triangles  )(\,  and  called  the  Sacred 

Tor,  S'TOR,  and  was  used  thus,  abundantly,  by  the  ma- 
gicians and  cabbalists  as  the  background  or  framework  of 
their  horoscopes.  It  seems  to  be  one  of  those  numerous 
implantations  of  a  later  astrological  mythology  upon  an 
older  pyramid  or  mountain-worship  with  which  I  should 
be  loth  just  now  to  interrupt  the  subject  of  this  lecture. 

Confining  our  attention  to  the  group  of  sciences  to  which 
this  lecture  is  devoted,  it  is  plainly  to  be  seen  that  their 
utterly  embryonic  condition  in  ancient  times,  and  the  ab- 
stract and  cosmical  character  which  they  bear,  make  it 
unlikely  that  we  can  get  from  them  many  concrete  facts 
respecting  the  earliest  times  of  man. 

I  will  begin  with  the  science  of  Numbers.  From  what 
we  know  of  the  notation  of  savage  tribes  of  the  present 
day,  we  may  infer  with  great  certainty  some  of  the  intel- 
lectual conditions  of  man's  earliest  residence  upon  the 
planet.  I  leave  to  the  next  lecture  the  question  how  long 
man  has  lived  upon  the  earth.  I  take  for  granted  also  this 
evening  that  his  first  appearance  was  in  an  undeveloped 
condition  of  mind.  The  ideas  of  number  which  savages 
of  the  present  day  possess  are  strangely  limited  :  some  of 
the  lowest  tribes  cannot  count  above  three  ;  the  Australians 

any  one,  who  has  virtue  and  judgment,  not  to  reverence  you,  who  are  a 
very  target  of  wonders,  into  which  the  stnrs,  contending  in  your  favour, 
have  shot  all  the  arrows  of  tliejr  gifts.' — Letter  of  Arretino  to  Michael 
Angelo,  in  Perkins'  Tuscan  Sculptors,  vol.  ii.  p.  50. 

*  See  Kawlinson's  picture  of  the  hill  Koukab  ('the  star')  in  his  Baby- 
lon (about  page  140).  See  also  the  fact  that  sb,  a  star  -j^  means  not 
only  to  adore,  but  &  gate  (or  door).  Bunsen,  p.  537,  Egypt,  vol.  i.,  7th 
determinative. 


i 


n.]  ANCIENT    AND   MODERN.  35 

count  only  to  foui',  and  after  tliat  all  numbers  are  to  them 
merely  Kauivol-Kauwol,  'many/  or  Bungu  Galang,  Wery 
many/  Many  stop  at  five ;  others  count  up  to  ten  before 
they  begin  again.  The  Sioux  Indians,  Dr  Hay  den  tells 
me,  count  upon  their  ten  fingers  and  their  ten  toes,  and 
call  that  one  man  ;  their  first  unit  is  therefore  one,  and 
their  second  unit  is  twenty.  Pliny  Chase  has  discussed  this 
curious  subject  with  great  skill,  to  develope  the  funda- 
mental ideas  of  the  numbers  on  the  basis  of  the  names 
which  are  given  to  them  in  many  languages.  He  finds 
that  their  very  names  show  how  feeble  the  mathematical 
faculty  of  the  savage  must  be.  In  some  of  these  wild  lan- 
guages even  the  word  for  three  means  two  and  one ;  four 
means  twice  two  ;  five,  three  and  two  ;  six  and  eight  mean 
the  second  three  or  the  second  four,  &c. 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  the  barrier  to  mental  development 
which  such  an  embryonic  notation  must  be.  Think  of  the 
difference  between  making  nine  strokes, as  the  old  Egyptian 
had  to  do,  and  writing  our  Arabic  numeral  9.  Progress  in 
.mathematical  machinery  was  at  first  very  slow ;  yet  our 
cypher  8  is   merely   a  more   convenient   form  of  the  old 

^^yP^^^^riii     -       ^^   some  respects  their  notation  seems 

simpler  than  ours,  as  when  they  represented  10  by  (j,  100 

by  (D,  1000  by  ^  ,  10,000  by  ^,  1,000,000  by  S)  ,  and 

1,000,000,000,000,000,000  by  l£j. 

But  it  was  not  really  so  ,•  for  nothing  can  excel  the  utility 
and  simplicity  of  our  decimal  system,  unless  it  be  a  similar 
system  with  a  decimal  of  8,  or  12,  or  16,  instead  of  10. 
Ajiy  advance  in  true  physical  science  was  impossible  in 
early  times  merely  for  want  of  some  such  counting  machine. 
The  first  ages  of  humanity  were  devoted  to  darkness  be- 
cause all  numbers  beyond  a  score  or  a  hundred  were  alike 
uncountable.  In  fact,  there  is  a  natural  dislike  to  mathe- 
matics in  the  untutored  mind ;  it  brings  too  great  a  strain 
upon  the  intellect.  You  remember  the  Arab  Sheikas  reply 
to  Layard's  friend  : — 'Although  I  have  passed  all  my  days 
in  this  place,  I  have  neither  counted  the  houses,  nor  in- 
quired into  the  number  of  the  inhabitants.     Shall  we  say, 


86  GENIUS    OF    THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,  [lRCT, 

Behold  this  star  spinneth  round  that  star,  and  this  other 
star  with  a  tail  goeth  and  cometh  in  so  many  years  ?  Let 
it  go  !  God  will  guide  it.'  This  of  itself  is  sufficient  to 
explain  the  reckless  chronologies  of  early  days^  and  the 
unblushing  coolness  with  which  thousands  of  years  were 
lavished  on  the  reigns  (or  life-times)  of  half-a-dozen  genera- 
tions. 

And  yet,  the  occurrence  of  those  immense  numbers  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Egyptian  and  Indian  history  hints  to 
us  the  existence  of  some  profound  consciousness  of  an  im- 
mense preceding  antiquity  residing  in  the  ancient  mind. 
The  old  bards  were  aware  that  the  race  had  been  tens  of 
thousands  of  years  upon  the  earth  from  considerations  of 
architecture  and  traditions,  now  lost,  just  as  Ave  have  been 
made  aware  of  it  by  considerations  of  a  geological  nature. 
Hence  it  was  natural  for  them  to  make  a  rude  calculation 
of  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes  and  fix  the  date  of  the 
beginning  of  the  Egyptian  empire  at  85,000  years. 

Now  it  is  in  taking  up  such  rude  calculations  of  the  an- 
cients and  making  them  more  precise,  and  applying  them 
with  a  cultivated  common  sense,  that  modern  Mathematics  * 
and  Astronomy  find  a  chance  to  employ  themselves  about 
the  question  of  the  original  conditions  of  our  race.  The 
discussions  over  the  zodiac  of  Denderah,  although  they 
resulted  in  proving  it  to  be  a  mere  astrological  diagram  of 
no  astronomical  value  whatever,  and  therefore  useless  to 
the  historian,  were  still  of  use  in  opening  up  other  and 
more  fruitful  resources.  The  fables  of  antiquity  are  often 
good  ethnological  guides,  and  some  of  these  come  within 
challenge  of  this  mathematic  group  of  sciences. 

Take  for  an  example  one  of  Kepler^s  most  happy  hits. 
It  is  rather  too  modern  an  instance,  for  it  relates  to  an 
event  dating  less  than  2000  years  back.  But  it  is  a  fine 
illustration  of  the  treatment  which  the  modern  sciences 
are  prepared  to  give  to  any  ancient  record  that  may  be 
brought  under  their  notice.  Kepler  was  engaged  in  cal- 
culating backwards  the  orbits  of  our  two  largest  planets, 
Saturn  and  Jupiter,  when,  to  his  astonishment  and  great 
delight,  he  saw  that  one  of  their  conjunctions,  and  one  of 
the  very  closest  and  most  splendid  that  they  had  ever 
had,  happened,  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances 
for  seeing  it,  precisely  at  the  birth  of  Christ   as  given  in 


II.]  ANCIENT   AND    MODERN.  87 

the  books.  Of  course  the  legend  of  the  star  in  the  East 
WHS  at  once  c?-:plained  in  its  most  essential  features. 

In  like  manner,  taking  an  example  a  few  centuries 
farther  back,  the  recalculation  of  the  eclipse  of  Thales  has 
become  the  starting-point  of  the  chronologists  in  their 
rectification  of  the  old  Greek  tables. 

Going  back  much  farther,  some  of  the  most  important 
Eg}^tian  dates  have  been  obtained  by  calculating  the 
heliacal  rising  of  Sirius  and  other  stars  watched  by  the 
Egyptians  on  account  of  their  connection  with  that  vitally 
interesting  event  to  them,  the  beginning  inundation  of  the 
Nile.  Much  of  that  old  mythology  receives  an  easy  ex- 
planation in  this  way. 

I  have  just  alluded  to  the  use  made  of  the  precession  of 
the  equinoxes.  A  similar  use  is  made  of  the  ellipticity  of 
the  earth^s  orbit.  A  discussion  is  going  on  (at  present) 
respecting  the  effect  upon  old  climates  which  a  regular 
variation  in  the  shape  of  the  orbit  of  the  earth  must  have 
produced.  Laplace  calculated  the  maximum  and  minimum 
of  this  ellipticity,  and  commenced  the  calculation  of  the 
length  of  time  required  to  lengthen  it  out  to  its  longest, 
and  then  to  reduce  it  to  its  roundest  form.  The  subject 
has  been  taken  up  lately  by  others  to  show  that  while 
the  corrected  mean  distance  of  the  earth  from  the  sun  is 
just  now  about  93  millions  of  miles,  there  must  have  oc- 
curred, at  enormous  intervals  of  time,  periodically,  such 
elongations  and  contractions  of  the  orbit  as  to  bring  the 
earth  during  one  season  of  the  year  within  85  millions  of 
miles  of  the  sun,  and  during  another  part  of  the  year  to 
caiTy  it  oflf  105  millions.  This  extreme  ellipticity,  how- 
ever, must  take  place  in  a  different  direction  each  time,  so 
that  the  closeness  of  the  earth  to  the  sun  will  sometimes 
coincide  with  the  summer  of  the  northern  hemisphere  and 
sometimes  with  its  winter.  When  it  coincides  with  sum- 
mer, then  the  northern  hemisphere  must  suffer  the  most 
extraordinary  variations  of  temperature,  the  absolute  ex- 
tremes of  both  summer  and  winter,  during  which  it  is  hard 
to  see  how  human  life  could  be  successfully  preserved 
upon  the  earth.  Such  was  the  glacial  epoch — all  the 
glacial  epochs.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  earth  re- 
cedes farthest  during  summer,  and  approaches  nearest 
during  winter  in  the  northern   hemisphere   the  amount  of 


38  GENIUS    OP   THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,,  [lECT. 

lieat  received  from  day  to  day  from  the  sun  must  be  almost 
invariable  round  the  whole  year.  Then  reigns  perennial 
spring.  Then  animal  and  vegetable  life  holds  its  millennial 
holiday.  Such  was  the  carboniferous  era^ — all  the  car- 
boniferous eras. 

I  did  not  mean  this  evening  to  touch  upon  the  geological 
antiquity  of  man,  reserving  that  for  the  next  lecture,  but 
you  will  see  at  once  that  this  astronomical  question  of 
the  ellipticity  of  the  earth^s  orbit  bears  directly  and 
heavily  upon  the  date  of  man^s  origin.  If  the  last  max- 
imum ellipticity  happened,  say  100,000  years  ago,  causing 
the  last  glacialism  of  the  northern  hemisphere,  and  if  we 
can  find  any  facts  connecting  that  glacial  condition  of  the 
earth  with  the  remains  of  man,  then  the  conclusions  so 
derived  must  influence  other  lines  of  inquiry.  And  yet  it 
is  but  one  very  little  streak  of  light,  mere  candle-light, 
which  astronomy  throws  in  among  the  shadows  of  those 
Robin  Hood  and  Robinson  Crusoe  days  of  mankind. 

2.  Another  such  glimmer  of  poor  information  is  furnished 
by  Physical  Geography,  the  marvellously  zealous  and  pro- 
ductive pursuit  of  which,  within  the  present  century  bears 
to  the  geography  of  the  ancients  abovit  the  same  propor- 
tions which  the  results  of  modern  astronomy  bear  to  the 
dreams  of  ancient  astrology.  To  feel  the  full  force  of  this 
comparison  you  need  only  lay  upon  your  table  the  poor 
little  sketch-map  of  Ptolemy;  then  spread  abroad  upon 
your  floor  the  sheets  of  the  Swiss,  French,  Swedish,  or 
British  topographical  surveys.  In  the  former  all  is  mon- 
strous and  confused,  not  a  latitude  or  longitude  correct ; 
not  a  line  or  part  of  a  line  in  any  portion  of  it  represent- 
ative of  truth ;  the  small  is  large,  the  large  is  small ;  and 
fancy  fills  up  spaces  where  the  scanty  and  untrustworthy 
reports  of  travellers  have  failed.  In  the  latter  every  moun- 
tain-peak is  established  by  a  reference  to  some  measured 
base  line ;  every  stream  is  traced  with  compass  and  level 
up  to  its  tiny  rivulets;  every  man's  possessions  are  de- 
fined as  if  the  entire  map  was  but  a  recorded  deed  of 
purchase ;  his  house,  his  garden,  even  the  footpath  which 
has  at  its  stile  the  warning  sign-board  '  beware  of  spring- 
guns  '  is  laid  down.  Four  miles  beyond  the  walls  of  the 
city  of  Bourges  the  geographers  of  France  have  erected 
a  pyramidal  monument  which   marks,  with   true   French 


II.]  ANCIENT   AND    MODERN.  39 

idealism  but  with  French  mathematical  accuracy,  the  pre- 
cise centre  of  France  as  it  was  before  the  annexation 
of  Nice  and  Savoy.  At  every  mile  along  the  southern 
boundary  of  Pennsylvania,  Mason  and  Dixon  planted  pillars 
of  stone  which  still  remain.  On  the  top  of  Mount  Desert, 
Wachusett,  the  Blue  Hill  in  Milton,  and  a  thousand  other 
eminences  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  stand  the  remains 
of  the  heliotropes  of  Hassler,  Bache,  and  Borden,  their 
relative  positions  determined  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
observations,  to  tho  fraction  of  a  linear  foot.*  Russia  and 
India  are  being  mapped  with  the  same  accuracy  and  par- 
ticularity. Even  the  hideous  deserts  of  Asia,  and  the 
hitherto  inaccessible  interior  table-lands  of  Africa,  ai-e 
falling  into  shape  under  the  analytical  studies  which 
Murchison  and  the  men  of  the  Loudon  Royal  Geographical 
Society  are  incessantly  making  from  the  itineraries  and 
sketches  and  astronomical  observations  of  Mann  and  Liv- 
ingstone, Burton  and  Speke,  and  Grant  and  Barr,  and  the 
brothers  Schlagintweit,  and  a  hundred  other  daring  ex- 
plorers, too  many  of  whom  have  already  paid  the  forfeit 
of  their  enthusiasm  with  their  lives. 

We  look  in  vain  for  any  analogue  of  this  accurate  science 
in  ancient  days. 

It  is  true.  Col.  Vyse,  Mr  Turner,  and  the  Astronomer 
Royal  of  Scotland,  Mr  Piazzi  Smyth,  have  published  the 
most  remarkable  things  concerning  the  great  pyramid  of 
Cheops.  For,  according  to  them,  it  must  have  been  laid 
out,  not  by  Benjamin  Franklin's  great-grandson,  but  by 
his  great-grandfather  250  generations  removed.  They 
find  its  base  to  be  a  precise  aliquot  part  of  the  circumfer- 
ence of  the  earth.  They  find  all  its  proportions  to  be  geo- 
metrical and .  astronomical.  The  angle  of  its  sides,  the 
slope  of  its  galleries,  the  distances  from  chamber  to  cham- 
ber within  it  they  show  to  be  obtainable  by  compass  and 
scale.  The  granite  chest  in  its  central  chamber  they  say 
is  no  sarcophagus  :  it  is  a  vast  standard  bushel,  containing 

*  Eight  hundred  counties  in  the  Northern  States  have  been  mapped 
so  as  to  show  every  house  and  the  owner's  name ;  and  a  complete  set  of 
these  maps  is  preserved  in  the  Library  of  the  British  Museum. 

The  whole  valley  of  the  Mississippi  has  been  crossbarred  by  the  sur- 
veyors of  the  government  of  the  United  States  at  intervals  of  six.  miles, 
north  and  south,  east  and  west. 


40  GENIUS    OP   THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES,  [LECT. 

precisely  four  English  quarterns  of  corn.  And,  more  than 
all,  they  think  they  prove  that  the  builders  of  this  gigantic 
meter  for  all  time  must  have  come  from  a  distance  (per- 
haps from  Mesopotamia)  in  search  of  some  such  place  as 
Memphis,  where  the  relations  of  latitude  could  come  har- 
moniously in  among  the  other  geometrical  relationships 
which  were  to  be  made  constants  for  all  science,  in  this 
pyramid.* 

However  true  all  this  may  be,  it  goes  but  a  short  dis- 
tance towards  our  purpose.  It  is  certainly  equally  true 
that  no  practical  applications  of  such  sequence,  if  it  really 
existed,  was  ever  made  in  ancient  times  on  any  scale  de- 
serving of  mention  by  a  modern  man.  The  maps  which 
ancient  Hindu  and  Chinese  books  contain  are  caricatures. 
The  oceans,  as  we  know  them,  were  to  the  ancients  a  river 
coiled  seven  times  round  the  entire  world  inhabited  by  man  ; 
or,  at  best,  a  rim  of  water  round  an  island  continent,  up  from 
which,  and  down  again  into  which,  the  sun  and  heavenly 
systems  i"ose  and  sank  from  day  to  day.  A  few  grand 
thinkers  had  indeed  concluded  that  the  earth  was  not  a 
circular  plate,  but  a  globe  hung  in  space  :  but  nothing 
came  of  this  conjecture  but  that  which  was  in  its  turn  con- 
jecture. The  Chinese  early  knew  the  magnetic  needle ;  ■  but 
not  how  to  work  out  their  geography  with  it,  in  combina- 
tion with  the  telescope  and  spirit-level.  Each  traveller  had 
a  different  story  to  tell  :  the  geographer  was  bewildered 
with  their  contradictoiy  reports.  The  skein  could  never 
be  unravelled  because  the  beginning  of  it  could  not  be 
found  ;  for  the  sine  qua  non  of  modern  topography  is  a 
measured  base  to  start  with,  and  the  ancients  were  not  up 
to  that,  although  their  Euclid  is  our  God  of  Cambridge. 
But  Euclid  is  one  of  the  moderns. 

It  is  a  very  great  pity  that  the  ancient  world  has  left  us 
no  records  of  physical  geography  to  compare  with  our  own 
observations.  Had  wo  correct  hypsometrical  tables  of  the 
heights  of  the  Alps  as  they  were  5000  years  ago,  what 
light  that  would  throw,  not  only  upon  the  rate  and  amount 
of  the  submergence  or  emergence  of  the  European  Conti- 

*  The  beautiful  application  of  physical  science,  in  the  double  shape  of 
the  magnesium  light  and  the  sensitive  photographic  plate  to  the  elucida- 
tion of  the  ancient  nivsteries  of  the  chambers  and  galleries  of  the  great 
pyramid  should  not  be  passed  unnoticed. 


n.]  ANCIENT   AND    MODERN.  41 

nent,  but  upon  the  migrations  of  its  early  inhabitants. 
Eight  centuries  ago,  for  instance,  those  dangerous  passes 
in  the  Alps,  which  the  traveller  now  can  hardly  find  a  guide 
to  pilot  him  through,  were  common  highroads  of  communi- 
cation between  the  Swiss  and  the  Italian  villages.  A  suc- 
cession of  cold  seasons  lengthens  all  the  Swiss  glaciers 
sensibly,  and  increases  the  privations  of  the  mountaineers. 
There  was  a  time  when  the  isolated  glaciers  of  the  Alps 
formed  one;  covered  the  whole  watershed;  spread  its  edges 
over  the  low  lands,  filled  up  the  lakes,  banked  against  the 
Jura,  and  probably  connected  themselves  with  vast  sheets 
of  ice  and  snow  around  the  world,  to  the  detriment,  if  not 
to  an  almost  complete  destruction,  of  sections  of  the  human 
race.  The  science  of  Meteorology  has  much  to  teach  us 
on  this  subject.  Then  there  are  all  the  questions  of  climate 
connecting  themselves  with  the  rise  of  mountains,  the 
formation  of  new  sea-currents  by  fresh  volcanic  submarine 
obstructions,  and  the  spread  and  disappearance  of  great 
forests,  all  of  them  determining  some  fresh  investigation 
into  the  earlier  state  of  man  both  in  historic  and  in  pre- 
historic times. 

What  we  most  miss  and  need  are  ancient  records  of 
these  physical  changes. 

Had  we  even  a  rough  outline  of  the  delta  of  the  Nile 
made  no  farther  back  than  the  twelfth  dynasty  of  the  pyra- 
mid-builders, how  much  nearer  we  could  come  to  the  an- 
swer of  that  vexed  c{uestion  whether  Egypt  was  settled 
from  Asia  or  from  Africa ;  whether  the  black  man  or  the 
white  man  be  the  elder  brother.  If  the  Rig-Veda,  instead 
of  being  a  jumble  of  ceremonial  hymns  to  fire  and  water, 
were  a  single  tolerably  well-constructed  map  of  the  valley 
of  the  Ganges,  and  the  country  behind  the  Sunderbunds, 
how  much  vain  argument  respecting  the  value  of  the  Yug 
chronology  and  the  antiquity  of  the  Turanian  tribes  of 
the  Ghauts  and  Deccan  would  have  been  saved !  All 
science  to  become  efficient  must  become  comparative ; 
this  is  its  second  stage.  To  settle  the  earliest  history  we 
need  the  combined  etforts  of  comparative  geography,  com- 
parative zoology,  and  comparative  philology.  But  compara- 
tive geography,  or,  as  we  usually  call  it.  Physical  Geography, 
which,  after  describing  the  present  status  of  the  earth^s 
features,  argues  back  to  what  they  have  been,  and  seeks 


42  GENIUS   OP   THE    PHYSICAL    SCIENCES. 

out  both  tlie  laws  whicli  governed  the  change,  and  the 
effects  which  it  pi-oduced  upon  living  beings,  especially  on 
man — Comparative  Geography  is,  alter  all,  only  one  phase 
of  Geology.  I  will  therefore  close  this  lecture  here,  and 
promise  to  take  up  in  the  course  of  the  next  the  points 
which  have  been  just  suggested. 

I  shall  discuss  the  Geological  Antiquity  of  Man,  as  proved 
by  his  fossil  remains,  in  connection  with  the  relics  of  ex- 
tinct animals  ;  the  proofs  we  have  of  great  geographical 
changes  during  the  human  period ;  the  value  of  various 
scales  of  years  which  geologists  have  endeavoured  to  apply 
to  the  residence  of  man  upon  the  earth,  and  the  ground  of 
the  now  commonly  accepted  division  of  antiquity  into  three 
definite  periods — the  Stone  Age,  the  Bronze  Age,  and  the 
Iron  Age.  And  I  shall  endeavour  to  make  these  questions 
clear  by  diagrams  to  the  eye,  although  I  may  not  be  able 
to  make  their  ansiuers  wholly  convincing  to  the  judgment 
of  uy  audience. 


LECTURE  III. 

THE  GEOLOGICAL  ANTIQUITY  OP  MAN. 

The  antiquity  of  mankind, — the  dignity  of  mankind, — 
the  unity  of  mankind  : — these  are  the  three  great  prelimi- 
nary questions  of  ancient  history.  Three  separate  sciences 
take  charge  of  them.  The  antiquity  of  mankind  is  a  geo- 
logical problem.  The  dignity  of  mankind  in  the  scale  of 
nature  is  to  be  chiefly  decided  by  zoology,  or  comparative 
anatomy.  The  moot  question  of  the  unity  or  diversity  of 
the  race  begins  the  studies  of  the  ethnologist. 

All  three  questions  have  been  settled  for  us,  as  you  are 
probably  but  too  well  aware,  many  centuries  ago  by  that 
'  science  falsely  so  called  •"  Theology.  And  it  really  seems 
to  be  a  work  of  clear  supererogation  to  commence  the  in- 
vestigation again.  Are  we  not  assured  that  the  world  is 
only  about  6000  years  old  ?  That  man  was  made  on  the 
sixth  day  of  its  existence  ?  Does  it  not  stand  so  written 
in  the  books  of  Moses  ?  Do  we  not  also  hioio  that  man 
'was  created  upright  before  he  fell,  and  of  a  grade  but  little 
lower  than  the  angels ;  and  that  his  spirit  goeth  upwards, 
while  that  of  the  beast  goeth  downwards  ?  All  this  is  too 
distinctly  written  by  holy  men  of  old,  who  wrote  as  they 
were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  be  called  in  question 
for  a  moment.  Even  the  smallest  particulars  are  put  at 
the  service  of  our  curiosity  to  be  received  with  implicit 
faith  : — how  that  God  made  one  Adam  first ;  then  cast  him 
into  sleep,  took  from  his  side  a  rib  and  made  a  woman  of  it, 
and  how,  from  these  twain,  sprang  all  nations  and  peoples 
and  kindreds  and  tongues  that  dwell  upon  the  surface 
of  the  whole  earth,  white  and  black,  yellow  and  brown, 
dwarfish  Esquimaux  and  gigantic  Patagonians,  woolly- 
haired  Melanesians  and  beautiful  Greeks,  Jews  with  great 
noses   and   Chinese  with  cat-like  eyes,  upon  every  con- 


44  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lECT. 

tinent  and  in  every  remote  island  of  the  sea.  The  books 
of  Moses  are  beheved  to  inform  us  absolutely  of  the.se 
facts,  in  language  as  unmistakably  plain  as  we  could 
desire  to  have  it;  as  plainly,  in  fact,  as  they  inform  us 
that  the  earth  was  made  three  days  before  the  sun,  tlius 
settling  for  us  the  nebular  hypothesis,  and  various  other 
little  difficulties  of  an  astronomical  nature  which  arise 
out  of  the  rotation  of  the  earth  and  planets  according  to 
the  Copernican  system. 

It  is  surprising  how  indifferent  men  of  science  seem  to  be 
to  these  great  statements !  Thousands  of  preachers  proclaim 
them  from  the  pulpit  every  Sunday  in  the  year ;  and 
millions  of  communicants  respond — Amen  !  And  yet  our 
men  of  science. continue  sceptical,  and  call  them,  as  the 
apostles  did,  old-wives^  fables.  They  believe  them  in- 
deed to  be  old  Jew-legends  so  palpably  heathenish  and 
contrary  to  all  we  now  know  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to 
try  to  show  their  absurdity.  But  they  add,  more  seriously, 
that  these  old  fables  are  no  part  of  Christian  theology; 
that  they  have  been  foisted  into  the  body  of  Christian 
divinity  to  save  the  brains  of  the  silly,  to  sustain  the 
prestige  of  the  clergy  and  to  excuse  the  vices  of  the 
laity;  and  that  they  are  already  disappearing  from  the 
public  faith  so  fast  under  the  influence  of  public  school- 
education  that  no  especial  notice  need  any  more  be  taken 
of  them.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  books  which 
periodically  appear  in  the  shops  upon  the  Harmony  of 
Science  and  Religion,  or  upon  the  Relations  of  Genesis  to* 
Geology,  are  wi-itten  by  clergymen ;  and  all  of  them  in  the 
service  of  Jewish  theology.  All  alike,  men  of  science  will 
no  longer  even  read  them,  but  look  w^ith  as  despairing  an 
eye  upon  those  who  write  them  as  Christiana's  party  did 
upon  the  man  whom  they  found  asleep  upon  the  enchanted 
ground. 

'  And  that  place  was  all  grown  over  with  briars  and 
thorns,  excepting  here  and  there  where  was  an  enchanted 
arbour,  \ipon  which  if  a  man  sits,  or  in  which  if  a  man 
sleeps,  it  is  a  question,  some  say,  whether  ever  he  shall  rise 
or  wake  again  in  this  world.  Over  this  forest  therefore 
they  went,  both  one  and  another,  and  Mr  Greatheart  went 


III.]  ANTIQUITY    OF    MAN.  45 

before,  for  tliat  he  was  the  guide;  aud  Mr  Yaliant-for- 
Truth  came  behind,  being  rear-guard.  Now  they  had  not 
gone  far,  but  a  great  mist  and  darkness  fell  upon  them  all. 
Wherefore  they  were  forced  for  some  time  to  feel  for  one 
another  by  words,  for  they  walked  not  by  sight.  But  any 
one  must  think  that  here  was  but  sorry  going  for  the  best 
of  them  all ;  but  how  much  worse  for  the  women  and  chil- 
dren who  both  of  feet  and  heart  were  but  tender.  They 
went  on  till  they  came  to  where  there  was  an  arbour, 
wherein  lay  two  men  whose  names  were  Heedless  and 
Too-bold.  Then  the  guide  did  shake  them,  and  do  what 
he  could  to  disturb  them.  Then  said  one  of  them,  I  will 
pay  you  when  I  take  my  money.  At  which  the  guide 
shook  his  head.  I  will  fight  so  long  as  I  can  hold  the 
sword  in  my  hand,  said  the  other.  At  that  one  of  the 
children  laughed.^ 

Through  this  enchanted  landmen  of  science  have  learned 
to  hurry  on,  without  any  longer  even  making  such  benevo- 
lent but  futile  efforts  to  awaken  the  sleepers  in  its  arbours. 
Let  us  start  fair  this  evening  with  the  discussion  of  the 
first  of  the  three  problems  which  I  have  mentioned,  viz. 
the  geological  antiquity  of  man.  To  do  this  we  must  make 
up  our  minds  to  part  company  with  the  schoolmen.  There 
is  no  alliance  possible  between  Jewish  Theology  and 
Modei'n  Science.  They  are  irreconcilable  enemies.  Ge- 
ology in  its  present  advancement  cannot  be  brought  more 
easily  into  harmony  with  the  Mosaic  cosmogony  than  with 
the  Gnostic,  the  Vedic,  or  the  Scandinavian.  It  has 
escaped  fully  and  finally  from  its  subjection  to  the  Creed. 
Sindbad  has  made  the  little  red  man  of  the  sea,  who  sat 
so  long  on  his  shoulders,  tipsy  with  new  wine,  tossed  him 
to  the  ground,  and  crushed  his  wicked  old  head  with  a 
stone.  Sindbad  is  free.  Geologists  have  won  the  right 
to  be  Christians  without  first  becoming  Jews. 

The  arguments  for  any  geological  fact  which  is  at  all  a 
comprehensive  one  are  gathered  only  by  years  of  patient 
and  laboi'ious  observation,  not  in  the  closet,  but  in  the 
field,. the  cabinet  and  the  laboratory.  A  thousand  fruitless 
journeys  before  success  can  crown  the  search  !  A  thousand 
false  hypotheses  before  the  true  theory  is  established  !  A 
thousand  mistakes  of  observation  published  before  they 
can  get  corrected !    Consequently    the  literature  of   the 


46  THE    GEOLOOICAL  [lECT. 

science  is  something  enormous  and  appalling.  Every  new 
step  in  advance,  while  it  becomes  in  one  sense  easier,  in 
another  sense  becomes  more  difficult  to  mahe.  Outsiders, 
charlatans,  t3'ros,  sciolists,  have  no  chance  at  all.  They 
must  take  eveiything  on  testimony.  There  was  a  time 
when  the  Dean  of  Westminster  in  his  study  could  be  a 
tolerable  geologist.  That  time  is  past.  No  man  who  does 
not  go  out  and  grapple  with  nature,  wrestling  with  this 
angel  through  the  long  dark  night,  receives  the  blessing 
when  the  sun  is  up.  The  knight  who  will  take  initiation 
into  these  mysteries  must  make  his  vigil  on  the  floor  of 
the  great  church,  equipped  in  full  armour,  fasting  and 
alone,  chaste,  silent,  brave.  It  is  impossible  for  a  mere 
reader  of  LyelPs  Elements,  or  a  mere  listener  to  Sedge- 
wick's  lectures,  to  get  that  profound  faith,  that  overpower- 
ing conviction  of  the  reality  of  former  creations,  and  of 
their  incalculably  great  antiquity  which  is  as  natural  to 
the  working  field-hand  in  palaeontology  as  is  his  faith  in 
the  good  God  or  in  his  own  past  life.  If  I  speak  there- 
fore dogmatically  to-night,  you  will  understand  that  the 
great  first  truths  of  Geology  have  been  so  seen  and  touched 
and  tasted,  that  they  are  no  longer  speculations,  but  expe- 
riences ;  no  longer  objects  of  belief,  but  of  absolute  know- 
ledge. Geology  is  not  in  its  infancy ;  it  has  reached  a  ripe 
maturity.  Its  greater  truths  need  no  further  testimony, 
no  more  copious  illusti'ation  than  they  already  have.  And 
it  is  only  of  such  that  I  will  just  now  speak.  Doubtful 
things  will  come  up  afterwards. 

Before  touching  the  antiquity  of  man,  I  must  give  you 
a  clear  conception  of  the  immense  antiquity  of  the  earth. 

If  you  see  a  stone  house  a-building,  you  know  that  the 
foundation  walls  were  built  first,  and  that  the  cut  courses 
must  have  been  laid  in  an  ascending  order.  You  knoAv 
this  with  absolute  certainty.  The  most  direct  outside  re- 
velation from  God  could  not  make  it  plainer,  nor  add  to 
the  force  of  your  conviction.  Nor  could  the  worker  of  a 
thousand  miracles  before  your  eyes  shake  this  conviction 
for  an  instant.  Now  Geology  is  the  science  of  this  cenvic- 
tion  applied  to  the  crust  of  the  earth,  as  an  unfinished  build- 
ing of  stone,  the  courses  of  which  have  been  laid  in  suc- 
cessive days.  It  has  its  Metamorphic  foundations,  its 
Palaeozoic  surbase  story,  its  stately  superstructure  of  Se- 


III.]  ANTIQUITY   OP   MAN.  47 

condary  and  Tertiary  rocks,  and  its  Volcanic  pinnacles. 
Tiie  workmen  with  their  tools  are  still  upon  its  highest 
scaffolding.  The  forms  of  Lapitha^  and  Centaurs  fill  all 
the  metopes  of  its  entablature.  The  pediment  is  even  now 
receiving  its  Olympic  synod  in  low  and  high  relief.  Created 
6O0O  years  ago,  and  in  a  single  day  !  You  might  as  well 
affirm  that  Coin  cathedral  was  begun  and  finished  before 
breakfast  yesterday.  You  might  as  well  believe  that 
other  oriental  story  of  Aladdin's  palace. 

Three  points  claim  especial  attention.     The  first  point 
is   the   characteristic    geological   feature  of  super  position. 
The  waters  of  the  globe  have  been   spreading  one  layer 
of  sand  and  gravel  over  another,  one  layer  of  mud  over 
another,  one  layer  of  limestone   and  marl  over  another, 
without  intermission,  without  haste,  with  the  greatest  re- 
gularity, for  many  millions  of  years,  until  the  whole  thick- 
ness   of   such   aqueous    sediments    as    are    known    to   us, 
amounts  to  no  less  than  16,000  fathoms,  say  20  miles,  from 
top  to  bottom.    And  when  we  remember  that  what  we  call 
the   bottom  of    these  sediments    is    no  true   bottom   layer, 
bat    merely  the   lowest  limit  of   our  observations  thus  far 
reached,  we  feel  ourselves  at  liberty  to  carry  back  the  era  of 
commencement  to  an  indefinite  distance. 

The  next  point  to  be  insisted  upon  is  the  division  of  the 
time  represented  by  this  20  miles  of  sediment  into  four  or 
five  successive  ages ;  and  the  subdivision  of  each  of  these 
ages  into  successive  systems ;  each  system  into  successive 
formations ;  each  formation  into  successive  beds ;  and  each 
bed  into  laminae  or  fine  layers,  no  thicker  in  some  cases 
than  a  sheet  of  foreign  letter-paper.  All  these  different 
ages  are  as  well  characterized  by  distinctive  features  as 
the  ages  of  architecture  are  by  different  styles.  No  tra- 
veller thinks  of  disputing  with  a  local  archseologist  while 
he  is  showing  him  the  curiosities  and  beauties  of  a  cathe- 
dral or  abbey  church,  founded  in  one  century,  enlarged  in 
another,  partially  rebuilt  in  another,  and  restored  and 
beautified  in  his  own  day.  There  is  no  mistaking  the 
Roman  age  of  the  towers  of  Jumieges,  nor  the  Norman 
age  of  its  roofless  nave,  nor  the  later  date  of  its  ruined 
pointed  Gothic  choir.  A  glance  is  sufficient  to  decide  that 
the  facade  of  the  Chateau  de  Galliou  could  not  have  been 
designed  by  any  architect  who  lived  when  the  baths  oi 


48  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lECT. 

Nero  were  put  up.  So  a  glance  from  the  stage-coacli  is 
sufficient  for  the  experienced  geologist  to  tell  whether  he 
be  riding  through  an  old  Laurentian  or  Huronian  region, 
or  among  Palaeozoic  mountains,  or  over  the  later  estuary 
sands  of  the  New  Bed,  or  over  the  still  more  modern  plains 
of  the  Chalk  and  Greensand  formations.  And  this  char- 
acterization of  sediments  of  different  ages  is  carried  out  in 
nature  so  completely,  and  to  such  minuteness  of  detail, 
that  the  good  local  geologist  can  recognize,  by  the  very 
surface  soil  and  incidental  shapings  of  the  hill-sides,  upon 
what  pai'ticular  belt  of  one  formation  he  is  riding,  whether 
the  rocks  around  him  belong,  for  instance,  to  the  Upper 
coal  measures,  or  to  the  Lower ;  to  the  upper,  the  middle, 
or  the  lower  Silurian.  You  can  easily  imagine  what  an 
impression  of  time  this  makes  upon  the  thoughtful  mind. 

The  Hebrew  legend  of  the  creation  describes  the  separa- 
tion of  the  waters  fi-om  the  dry  land  as  having  been  de- 
termined by  a  creative  act  upon  the  third  day,  and  fixed 
for  all  time.  The  fact  is,  that  no  fxed  relation  of  land  and 
water  has  ever  been  established  for  the  surface  of  the  globe. 
From  the  beginning  land  and  water  have  been  exchanging 
places.  Every  acre  of  the  laud-surface  of  the  earth  which 
geology  has  examined  bears  indubitable  marks  of  having 
been  not  simply  overflowed,  but  actually  created  at  the 
bottom  of  the  ocean.  And  it  is  needless  for  me  to  tell  this 
audience  what  proofs  we  have  that  every  part  of  every  coast 
of  every  ocean  is,  this  evening,  while  I  say  it,  either  rising 
slowly  from  the  waters,  or  sinking  slowly  into  them.  Can 
any  phenomenon  enhance  more  highly  than  this  our  ideas  of 
geological  time  ?  Yet  when  we  come  to  feel  the  full  force 
of  the  terms  Erosion,  Denudation,  as  applied  to  the  present 
surface  of  the  earth,  by  which,  through  the  slow  wear  and 
tear  of  centuries — millenniums — of  fiery  summer  suns  and 
wintry  frosts,  sedate  glaciers  and  mad  torrents,  trickling 
rills  and  mouldering  damps,  sharp  rootlets  thrust  in  cracks 
and  lichens  softening  the  toughest  rock,  the  very  Alps 
have  been  wasted  half  away,  and  where  once  even  mightier 
Alpine  ranges  ran,  now  nothing  but  a  continent  of  rounded, 
grassy,  forest-covered  hills  remains ; — still  more,  were  I  to 
give  you  proofs  at  hand  of  the  repetition  of  this  work  in 
all  the  past  ages  of  the  world,  and  show  you  the  wasted 
outlines  of  hills  and  valleys  in  the  inside  of  the  crust  itself. 


III.]  ANTIQUITY    OF   MAN.  49 

fossil  erosions,  hills  and  valleys  embedded  like  bones  and 
shells  under  whole  formations  of  rock  sediment, — you 
would  begin  to  feel  the  overwhelming  weight  of  geological 
time,  and  be  disposed  to  cry — ^Tis  but  another  name  for 
an  eternity. 

I  might  illustrate  this  subject  of  erosion  by  many 
beautiful  instances, — such  as  ravines  a  thousand  feet  deep 
through  prismatic  lava  fields  ;  caves  which  were  once  but 
one,  now  separated  by  a  river  with  cliff  walls ;  fissures 
filled  with  what  was  once  rock-oil,  afterwards  dried  into  a 
vein  of  bituminous  coal,  and  now  exposed  to  view  on  both 
sides  of  a  wide  deep  valley.  If  anything  has  taken  time 
it  has  been  this  mouldering  down  of  the  successive  surfaces 
of  the  planet. 

The  third  point  of  prime  importance  is  one  that  brings 
us  close  to  the  subject  of  our  lecture.  Every  geological 
age  has  had  its  own  different  and  special  inhabitants, — its 
successive  creations  of  life-forms.  Each  geological  system, 
even  each  successive  formation,  has  entombed  the  remains 
of  millions  of  zoophiles,  plants  and  animals  peculiar  to 
that  particular  stage  of  the  earth's  history,  and  to  no 
other.  I  say  nothing  now  of  any  supposed  progression  of 
ideas  in  the  creative  intelligence  embodied  in  these  forms  : 
this  would  come  in  better  shape  before  us  in  the  next 
lecture.  I  argue  nothing  here  for  or  against  the  theory  of 
instantaneous  creation ;  or  the  opposite  theory  of  spon- 
taneous development  of  one  set  of  forms  out  of  another.  I 
wish  to  confine  your  attention  just  now  to  the  established 
fact  that  no  geologist  can  possibly  mistake  Silurian  rocks 
for  Devonian,  or  Devonian  for  Permian,  or  Pei'mian  for 
Cretaceous,  or  Cretaceous  for  Postpleiocene,  when  he  has 
once  caught  sight  of  even  only  a  small  collection  of  their 
fossils.  Nature  is  no  Brummagem  manufacturer  of  old 
Greek  coins  or  Pharaouic  scarabgei  to  be  re-sold  to  travel- 
lers at  the  foot  of  the  Pyramids,  or  in  the  great  hall  at 
Carnac.  In  fact,  as  if  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  such 
deception,  the  truth-loving  Creator  has  marked  shells  of 
similar  shapes,=i-'  but  of  different  ages,  with  such  delicate  but 
unmistakable  variations  of  detail,  that  we  must  stand  more 
and  more  amazed,  not  only  at  the  infinite  resources,  but. 

*  E.g.  the  microscopic  dentation  discovered  by  Agassiz  in  the  interior 
lamellae  of  one  of  two  shells  in  all  outward  respects  undistiuguishable. 


50  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lECT. 

at  the  inflexible  integrity  of  his  skill.    Surely  lie  designed 
tliat  men  should  not  deceive  themselves. 

Do  you  not  see  what  a  mistake  was  made  by  the  fine 
old  Hebrew  poet  who  sang  the  Mosaic  song  when  he 
separated  the  creation  of  the  land  and  waters  from  the 
creation  of  the  fish  and  air-breathing  animals^  fixing  the 
former  on  the  third  day,  and  the  latter  on  the  fifth  and 
sixth  ?  But  let  us  do  him  justice.  His  is  a  poem,  not  a 
text-book.  He  could  only  see  the  phenomena  of  the  world 
iu  the  twilight  of  his  times ;  but  his  genius  grasped  them, 
even  thus  half  seen,  in  a  poetic  ordei  wonderfully  like  the 
actual.  Nor  was  it  possible  for  him  to  describe  them 
complicated  as  they  are  iu  nature.  With  the  same  ample 
grandeur,  but  without  the  horrors  that  surround  the  circu- 
lar stages  of  Dante's  Hell,  he  has  resumed  under  seven 
heads  the  wonders  of  the  universe ;  and  the  order  of 
ascending  worth  which  they  bore  in  his  own  mind  tallied 
with  that  which  in  the  Divine  idea  compelled  the  suc- 
cessive stages  of  development  in  the  history  of  the  earth. 

Conceive  now  the  illimitable  stretch  of  ages  upon  ages 
occupied  in  the  production,  establishment,  increase,  de- 
cline, extinction,  and  substitution  of  these  grand  ranges 
of  successive  worlds  of  vegetable  and  animal  organisms, 
all  perfect  in  themselves,  all  differing  from  one  another, 
all  harmonizing  with  the  growing  physics  of  the  planet, 
and  leading  slowly  but  surely  up  to  man.  Could  God 
have  made  all  this  at  once  ?  I  speak  not  of  a  puckish, 
brutal  Demiurge,  fond  of  such  practical  jokes ;  he  could. 
I  speak  of  the  Christian's  God  of  truth,  the  loving  '  Father 
who  is  in  heaven.'  Would  it  not  have  been  a  flagrant 
imposition  upon  intelligence, — a  complicated  and  most 
flagitious  forgery  ?  Heaven  could  scarcely  have  devised 
such  a  barmecide  feast  to  set  before  the  hungry  intellect 
of  man. 

Nor  is  the  difliculty  diminished  by  calling  a  day  a  thou- 
sand years.  We  have  in  paleeontology  the  records  of  a 
thousand  ages.  Many  of  the  old  limestone  strata  are  en- 
tirely made  up  of  corals  and  their  triturated  debris.  Some 
of  the  old  Devonian  mud-rocks  are  mere  masses  of  the 
casts  of  brachiopods,  of  every  size  from  the  youngest  to 
the  oldest.     Some  of  the  coal-measure  shales  are  leaved 


lU.J  •  ANTIQUITY    OF    MAN.  51 

like  a  book,  and  every  leaf"  glistens  witli  delicate  fresh- 
water shells.  In  the  Deep-river  basin  of  North  Carolina 
millions  of  fish-teeth  lie  packed  away  between  two  layers 
of  coal  which  lie  but  two  feet  apart.  There  are  more  than 
a  hundred  beds  of  coal  in  a  single  coal-system,  each  of 
which  is  the  result  of  the  growth  of  a  peat-bog,  swamp, 
and  forest  of  a  separate  age ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  many 
fathoms  of  rocks  which  intervene  between  each  one  coal-bed 
and  the  next  in  order  over  it ;  during  which  long  interval 
of  time  the  land  must  have  been  too  deep  beneath  the 
water  level  to  permit  of  vegetation.*  The  fossil  dung  of 
the  fish  which  swam  the  seas  during  the  deposition  of  the 
chalk  of  England  was  so  abundant  that  the  farmers  about 
Cambridge  collect  it,  as  it  is  set  free  from  the  mother-rock 
by  denudation,  and  use  it  to  manure  their  lands. 

Professor  Heer,  of  Zurich,  has  lately  published  in  his 
admirable  Geology  of  Switzerland  a  minute  history  of  one 
single  formation,  only  36  feet  thick,  which  he  divides  into 
18  beds.  It  tells  a  striking  story  of  change  and  time, 
which  we  need  only  multiply  by  thousands  to  get  some 
adequate  notion  of  the  antiquity  of  the  earth. 

Until  about  30  years  ago  the  great  geological  question 
for  those  who  busied  themselves  with  the  higher  problems 
of  life  was  this  :  Why  do  not  the  remains  of  man  appear 
among  the  fossil  treasures  of  the  earth  ?  Here  the  theo- 
logians always  had  the  geologists  upon  the  hip.  If  the 
earth  is  so  old,  they  triumphantly  clamoured,  why  does  not 
man  share  in  its  antiquity  ?  Show  us  a  fossil  human  bone 
— a  fragment  of  his  skull  ;  a  single  tooth  will  satisfy  us,  if 
it  be  imbedded  fairly  in  one  of  your  fossiliferous  rocks. 

To  this  there  was  but  one  reply  :  Wait ! 

The  ethnologists,  the  archaeologists,  the  egyptologists 
were  in  the  same  predicament,  and  shared  to  some  extent 
in  the  embarrassment  of  the  palgeontologists.     They  had 

*  There  are  reasons,  in  my  opinion,  to  believe  that  many  of  the  inter- 
vals, where  they  consist  of  sand,  were  rather  raised  above  than  lowered 
into  the  water.  The  calamites,  rooted  at  ditferent  heights  in  the  sandy 
strata  of  the  Glass  Bay  coast  of  Cape  Breton,  seem  to  argue  in  that  di- 
rection. Either  emergence  or  submergence  would  necessarily  put  a  stop 
to  a  coal-bed's  growth.  Probably  both  explanations  are  equally  admissible 
in  their  proper  places. 


62  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lECT. 

found  human  skeletons  in  ancient  caves,  mixed  with  bones 
of  animals,  some  of  them  foreign  to  the  countries  in  which 
the  caves  existed.  But  there  was  no  date  to  be  assigned 
with  any  certainty  to  these  ossuary  deposits ;  there  was  no 
proof  positive  that  they  were  not  swept  into  these  caves  by 
comparatively  modern  freshets.  It  was  easy  to  assert,  and 
hard  to  disprove,  that  the  caves  were  not  the  habitations 
or  at  all  events  places  of  refuge  for  the  early  races  of  man- 
kind, and  that  these  fed  upon  the  aninmls  whose  bones 
were  mixed  with  their  own  skeletons;  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  caves  might  have  been  the  dens  of  hyenas  whose 
bones  were  found  in  some  of  them  in  great  numbers  ;  and 
it  was  reasonable  to  suppose  that  these  predatory  creatures 
might  have  added  human  victims  to  the  other  evidences  of 
their  omnivorous  rapacity.  The  whole  phenomenon  was 
one  of  such  complexity  and  difficulty  that  it  required  a  long 
examination.  These  caves  were  discovered  one  by  one  in 
England,  in  France,  in  Sicily,  in  Brazil,  in  fact  in  all  coun- 
tries which  contain  limestone  regions.  They  are  very  nu- 
merous ;  they  differ  much  in  the  number,  kind,  proportion, 
and  condition  of  their  fossils  ;  but  they  almost  all  agree  in 
one  principal  feature — their  bones  are  preserved  from  at- 
mospheric decomposition  by  deposits  of  carbonate  of  lime, 
slowly  introduced  by  the  infiltration  of  waters  through  their 
roofs,  forming  stalactites  above,  and  a  floor  of  stalagmite 
which  covers  a  red  earth  in  which  the  bones  are  buried. 
The  hones  of  man  wei-e  rare  couipared  with  those  of  other 
animals ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  instances  of  the  dis- 
covery of  marks  of  the  j>rese^^ce  o/"  wrm  were  numerous,  and 
the  number  of  stone  and  flint  implements  collected  from 
all  the  caves  was  very  great.  Yet  it  is  not  too  strong  an 
affirmation,  that  after  all  the  reseai'ches  of  Buckland  and 
Lyell,  and  Tournal  and  Schmerling,  no  one  was  satisfied 
bow  the  thing  would  turn  out ;  what  the  age  of  the  caves, 
or  of  their  contents,  might  be  ;  or  what  relation  the  human 
relics  really  might  bear  to  the  remains  of  animals  with 
which  they  were  intermixed,  or  to  the  geological  sequence 
of  aqueous  formations  constituting  the  crust  of  the  earth. 
The  individual  explorers  had  their  own  opinions,  but  the 
world  of  science  watching  their  labours  was  not  satisfied. 
Buckland  published  his  Reliquiae  Diluvianae  in  1823,  in 
which,  he  discussed  the  whole  subject  of  organic  forms 


ni.]  ANTIQUITY    OP    MAN.  53 

found  in  the  caves,  tlie  fissures,  and  the  gravel-beds  of 
England,  and  concluded  that  the  human  remains  which  he 
had  found  therein  were  not  so  old  as  the  accompanying 
fossils.  It  was  a  theological  conclusion,  and  was  accepted 
with  dehghtf  b}'  the  conservative  science  of  England.  In- 
deed, it  remained  a  shibboleth  of  geological  oi'thodoxy  in 
England  until  about  twenty  years  ago^*  when  the  acceptation 
of  a  new  series  of  discovered  facts  on  the  Continent  broke 
down  the  bigotry  of  the  British  school,  and  a  general 
stampede  of  the  younger  geologists  took  place  to  the  other 
side  of  the  question. 

In  1828,  that  is,  five  years  after  the  appearance  of 
Buckland^s  book,  two  French  gentlemen  in  the  south  of 
France,  MM.  Tournal  and  Christy,  examined  and  re- 
ported on  fbone  caves  atBize,  and  at  Pondres  nearNismes, 
in  the  Valley  of  the  Gard.  They  had  found  human  bones 
and  teeth,  fragments  of  pottery  in  two  styles,  pointed 
bones  and  flint  hatchets  and  arrow-heads,  cemented  in  a 
mud  breccia  loitli  living  land  shells,  and  the  remains  of  both 
recent  and  extinct  animals,  such  as  the  hyena,  rhinoceros, 
stag,  antelope,  goat,  Lithuanian  aurochs  and  Lapland 
reindeer,  the  last  of  which  is  almost  everywhere  found 
associated  with  the  mammoth  of  France  in  ancient  allu- 
viums and  cavern  muds.  These  gentlemen  also  thought 
they  perceived  unmistakable  evidences  of  a  time  arrange- 
ment or  stratification  of  the  remains  such  as  quite  set 
aside  the  idea  that  the  human  relics  were  introduced 
subsequently. J 

But  there  were  Bucklandites  in  France  also.  M. 
Desnoyers  pointed  to  the  Druid  tum/uli  and  dolmens  of 
the  primitive  inhabitants  of  Gaul,  under  which  he  had 
found  quantities  of  such  flint  hatchets  and  arrow-heads, 
pointed  bones  and  coarse  pottery,  mingled  with  the  sacri- 

*  Althougli  Priest  M'Enery  had  early  found  fliut  tools  under  stalag- 
mite in  Kent's  Hole,  near  Torquay  ;  and  Godwin  Austen  had  published 
in  Trans.  Geol.  Soc.  (vi.  1842)  flints  widely  distributed  in  loam  under 
the  Kent's  Hole  stalagmite.  In  1858  the  new  Brixham  Cave  w^as  ex- 
amined by  the  Royal  Society,  and  made  Prestwich  and  Falconer  antedi- 
luvianists. 

t  Annales  de  Chimie  et  de  Physique,  p.  161,  1833,  Christol.  Notice 
BUT  les  ossements  humains  des  cavernes  du  Gard.     Montpellier,  1829. 

t  Lyell,  Antiq.  of  Man,  chap.  iv.  1863. 


54  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lECT. 

ficial  bones  of  deer,  slieep,  dogs,  wild  boars,  oxen,  and 
horses ;  but  no  elephant,  rhinoceros,  hyena,  tiger,  or  other 
extinct  species  found  in  caves  had  ever  shown  that  these 
aboriginal  Celts  had  been  their  contemporaries.* 

In  1833  appeared  the  great  work  f  of  Dr  Schmei'ling  of 
Liege,  in  Belgium,  who  had  been  devoting  several  years 
to  the  exploration  of  forty  caverns  in  the  valleys  of  the 
river  Mouse,  the  stalagmite  floors  of  which  had  never 
before  been  broken  up.  Here,  mingled  indiscriminately 
with  extinct  bear,  hyena,  elephant,  and  rhinoceros,  and 
modern  beaver,  cat,  wildboar,  roebuck,  hedgehog,  and 
wolf,  above  them  and  below  them;  and  in  the  same  degree 
of  preservation  in  all  respects  he  found  the  rolled  and 
scattered  bones  of  men.  None  of  the  common  marks  of 
burial  were  seen.  None  of  the  bones  were  gnawed,  as  if 
by  animals.  No  coprolites  or  fossil  dung  of  predatory 
beasts  were  found ;  the  caves  had  not  been  dens.  The 
osseous  stratum  was  an  undoubted  aqueous  deposit, 
brought  into  the  caverns  through  fissures  communicating 
with  the  surface.  Thousands  of  snail  shells,  and  one- 
snake,  a  few  fresh-water  fish-bones  and  the  bones  of 
several  birds   led  to  the  same  conclusion. 

In  the  Engis  cave,  eight  miles  S.W.  of  Liege,  fragments 
of  three  human  bodies  (chiefly  skulls)  were  found.  The 
now  celebrated  Engis  skull  lay  buried,  five  feet  deep,  in 
the  mud  beneath  the  alabaster  covei-ing,  along  with  a 
rhinoceros  tooth  and  reindeer  bones. 

In  the  Engihoul  cavern  opposite,  remains  of  at  least 
three  bodies  were  discovered,  chiefly  belonging  to  the  arms 
and  legs. 

The  Chokier  cavern,  two  and  a-half  miles  S.W.  of 
Liege,  afi"orded  many  fragments  of  thi.  bodies  and  limbs  of 
bears,  but  skulls  were  rare ;  in  otliei  caves  bear- skulls 
were  numerous,  and  trunk  and  limb  bones  rai^e;  at  Goffbn- 
taine  all  parts  were  in  proportion.  In  the  Chokier  cave  he 
found  a  polished  bone  needle  with  a  hole  pierced  through 
its  base  for  an  eye.     Another  cut  bone  was  found  in  the 

*  Desnoyer,  Bull,  de  la  Soc.  Geol.  ii.  252.  And  S.  V.  Caverne,  Diet. 
Univ.  d'Hist.  Nat.    Paris,  18-15. 

t  "Recherches  sur  les  ossements  fossiles  d^couveds  dans  les  cavernes 
de  la  Province  de  Liege,  1833-1834. 


m.]  ANTIQUITY    OF    MAN.  55 

Engis  cave  ;  and  rude  flint  instruments,  distributed  through 
red  loam,  were  common  in  all  the  other  caves. 

Mankind  -were  obviously  then  contemporary  with  the  ex- 
tinct carnivora  and  pachyderms.  So  much  was  certainly 
made  out.  But  still,  it  had  not  been  proved  that  these 
tropical  creatures  had  ever  lived  in  Europe.  Schmerlinu,' 
imagined  therefoi-e  (that  panacea  for  all  geological  difficult- 
ies) a  cataclysm  or  deluge,  of  undetermined  date,  which 
had  swept  their  bodies  over  from  Africa  to  bury  them  upon 
the  shores  of  the  Northern  seas.  Whether  they  had  first 
been  left  as  a  diluvial  deposit  on  the  surface  of  the  land 
and  afterwards  found  their  way  into  the  caves  he  did  not 
undertake  to  determine.  And  he  still  further  puzzled  the 
whole  question  by  asserting  that  among  the  various  re- 
mains of  other  animals  he  had  found  those  of  the  South 
American  agouti,  which  however  afterwards  turned  out 
to  be  those  of  an  extinct  species  of  French  porcupine. 

Eight  more  years  passed  in  fruitless  speculation  ;  during 
which  the  patient  Belgian  continued  to  be  let  down  by 
ropes  from  the  top  of  the  crags  which  make  the  valleys  of 
the  Mouse  the  most  picturesque  in  the  world,  and  to  crawl 
on  his  hands  and  knees,  pick  in  hand,  through  the  drip- 
ping caves  and  fissures  which  penetrate  the  Devonian 
limestone  in  every  direction  ;  visited  by  geologists  and 
archaeologists  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  who  could  only 
tell  him  stories  of  si^nilar  discoveries  made  by  themselves 
in  other  regions,  but  nothing  new;  nothing  to  shed  light 
upon  his  splendid  cabinet;  nothing  to  solve  the  riddle  by. 
Then  Isis  smiled  upon  her  puzzled  priests,  lifted  another 
corner  of  her  veil,  and  made  a  new  suggestion.  The 
answer  to  the  conundrum  began  to  shape  itself  at  last  in 
intelligible  words. 

It  was  now  1841,  when  an  old  antiquary,  walking  out 
from  his  chateau  in  the  little  city  of  Abbeville,  through 
which  the  highway  runs  from  Boulogne-sur-mer  to  Paris, 
where  it  crosses  the  river  Somme,  watched  one  day  work- 
men shovelling  gravel  from  the  quarries  on  the  heights 
beyond  the  city  walls.  Among  the  fantastic  forms  of 
flint  which  they  threw  out  his  quick,  experienced  eye 
detected,  as  he  thought,  one  that  looked  unnatural.  He 
picked  it  up  ;ind  looked  at  it  more  carefully.  Could  he  be 
mistaken  ?     Plad  he  not  seen  such  in  cabinets   of    anti- 


66  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lECT. 

quities  ?  The  more  lie  looked  at  it  the  more  lie  was  con- 
vinced that  it  had  been  tampered  with ;  in  fact,  manu- 
factured by  the  hands  of  man.  Yet  how  could  that  be  ? 
He  asked  the  workman  to  show  him  the  exact  spot  from 
which  it  had  been  shovelled.  It  was  a  bed  of  waterworn 
and  broken  flints^  deep  beneath  the  surface,  covered  by  a 
deposit  of  loam,  several  yards  in  thickness.*  None  of  the 
other  flints  showed  the  same  marks.  They  were  rounded, 
except  where  broken  across,  knobbed  like  potatoes  when 
they  grow  in  a  bunch  attached  together,  and  coated  with  a 
crust  of  dull  white  substance  due  to  the  decomposition  of 
their  surfaces.  The  piece  he  held  in  his  hand,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  of  a  regular  shape,  chipped  to  an  edge  on  both 
sides,  and  brought  to  a  point  at  one  end  by  the  loss  of  a 
multitude  of  little  flakes,  such  as  no  attrition  or  percussion 
in  running  waters  could  possibly  effect.  The  other  end 
was  round  and  still  retained  the  dull  white  crust  which 
characterized  the  unmanufactured  flints  among  which  it 
had  lain  embedded.  He  took  it  home.  He  went  into  his 
museum.  He  compared  it  with  stone  hatchets,  arrow- 
points,  spear-heads,  chisels,  and  pointed  tools  of  various 
kinds  which  he  had  got  from  the  Druid  barrows  and  dol- 
mens of  Normandy.  There  was  no  mistaking  its  resem- 
blance to  these  works  of  human  art,  some  of  which  were 
more  carefully  prepared,  and  were  even  polished  ;  but 
others  of  them  were  quite  as  rude  as  the  one  which  he  had 
fouud.t 

Here  then  was  a  discovery  !  But  he  was  enough  of  a 
geologist  to  see  all  its  difficulties.  He  must  be  still  more 
sure  that  it  was  a  genuine  inhabitant  of  that  bed  of  flints 
beneath  the  bed  of  loam.  Nay,  his  specimen  would  be 
laughed  to  scorn  if  he  presented  it  to  the  learned  world 
by  itself.     All  the  world  would  say  that  he  had  dropped  it 

*  For  a  section  and  description  of  this  famous  locality,  see  Lyell's 
Ant.  of  Man,  p.  135.  See  Prestwich's  section  of  the  valley  in  the 
Journal  of  Geol.  Soc„  London.  For  section  of  description  of  Menche- 
court  quarries  see  Proceedings  of  Amer.  Phil.  Soc.,  1864. 

t  There  are  also  deeper  cavities  flaked  out  for  the  ends  of  the  thumb 
and  index  finger  to  be  noticed  in  many  of  these  tools,  while  some  are 
shown  in  this  way  to  have  been  used  alternately  or  at  pleasure  by  grasp- 
ing either  end. — See  also  Mr  Ramsay's  testimony,  in  Lyell's  Antiquity  of 
Man. 


m 


III.]  ANTIQUITY    OF    MAN.  57 

accidentally  from  his  pocket  in  among  the  debris  of  the 
quarry,  even  if  politeness  or  good  nature  prevented  a  more 
damaging  insinuation.  Perhaps  some  workman  had 
picked  it  up  upon  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  dropped 
it  in  the  quarry.  All  cabinet  collectors  know  liow  often 
specimens  get  into  wrong  boxes.  All  geologists  know 
how  easy  it  is  to  mistake  the  situation  of  a  fossil.  He 
must  find  more  of  them   or  say  nothing  more  about  it. 

For  six  long  years  Boucher  de  Perthes  became  as 
sedulous  a  hanger-on  about  the  quarries  in  the  valley  of 
the  Somme  as  any  seedy  old  nobleman  in  the  Quartier 
Latin  about  the  Luxembourg.  And  he  was  rewarded.  As 
the  workmen  advanced  the  headings  of  their  pits  and 
opened  back  the  flint  bed  which  had  the  loam  above  it 
and  the  solid  chalk  below  it,  the  antiquary  stood  by  (or  his 
servants  for  him  when  he  was  sick)  and  selected  out  the 
manufactured  flints  one  by  one  as  they  appeared.  He  feed 
the  workmen  themselves  to  vigilance.  When  a  flint  in- 
strument appeared  they  would  leave  it  in  its  place  and 
send  for  the  old  crazy  man,  as  they  thought  him,  to  come 
from  the  city  and  take  it  out  of  its  long  resting-place  him- 
self. The  number  thus  obtained  was  immense.  At  last 
he  could  contain  his  knowleda;e  no  lono-er.  He  took  a 
thousand  of  them  up  to  Paris  and  showed  them  to  the 
Academicians.  But  what  did  these  men  know  ?  It  was  a 
favourite  jest  of  a  French  wit  that  all  the  science  of  the 
Royal  Academy  of  France  was.  in  the  head  of  its  41st 
member.  It  had  but  40  members.  Boucher  de  Perthes 
was  as  much  the  old  crazy  man  at  Paris  as  at  Abbeville. 

In  1847  he  published  the  first  volume  of  his  great  book, 
Antiquites  Celtiques,  in  which  he  gave  a  full  account  of 
his  discoveries,  calling  them  antediluvian,  because  they 
were  made  in  the  bottom  layers  of  what  all  geologists  had 
called  the  great  Diluvium,  or  Diluvial  Drift,  taking  their 
terminology  from  the  science  of  the  3Iiddle  Ages,  based 
on  the  stories  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  of  the  Jews.  His 
account  produced  no  impression.  It  was  puzzling  enough 
to  solve  the  riddle  of  the  caves ;  this  man  had  proposed  a 
still  more  tremendous  problem  :  how  the  remains  of  man 
came  to  be  buried  in  the  rocks  themselves.  The  easiest 
way  was  to  ignore  the  whole  aflsiir.  Some  denied  that  the 
tools  were  anvthing  more  than  natural  fragments.     Others 


68  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lECT. 

denied  that  they  were  found  30  feet  beneath  the  surface. 
Elie  de  Beaumont,  the  disciple  of  Cuvier,  and  the  head  of 
the  geologists  in  France,  reasserted  Cu\aer^s  opinion  that 
the  old  gravel-beds  of  the  valley  of  the  Somme  had 
slipped  down  the  hill-sides  to  their  present  situation ; 
therefore  he  did  not  care  whether  the  flints  were  manu- 
factured or  not ;  whether  they  were  found  30  feet  below 
the  surface  or  not.  The  quarries  were  only  worked  in 
winter ;  nobody  in  his  senses  would  leave  Paris  in  winter- 
time to  prove  the  assertions  of  a  pro-vincial  antiquarian 
whose  whole  story  was  improbable,  and  if  true  would 
upset  all  preconceived  opinions.  Even  Dr  Rigollet,  who 
lived  in  the  same  valley  at  Amiens,  nol^  30  miles  from 
Abbeville,  and  who  had  written  in  1819  a  memoir  on  the 
fossil  mammalia  of  the  valley,  took  no  pains  to  verify  his 
neighbour's  facts  for  more  than  three  years  after  the 
Antiquites  Celtiques  appeared  in  press,  but  denied  them 
heartily,  until  he  one  day  paid  Boucher  de  Perthes  a 
visit  and  returned  to  his  own  home  only  to  find  similar 
evidences  of  man's  early  existence  in  its  immediate 
vicinity ;  nor  did  he  publish  his  recantation  for  four  more 
years,  after  he  had  made  a  large  collection  for  himself. 

And  so  the  matter  rested.  Boucher  de  Perthes  went 
on  collecting  specimens  and  enlarging  and  arranging  his 
cabinet,  biding  his  time.  It  cam^at  last.  He  was  now  the 
great  man  of  the  day  in  geological  archasology ;  for,  like 
Linngeus,  and  Cuvier,  and  Lavoisier,  and  Hunter,  he  has 
started  one  of  the  sciences  on  a  new  career.  Let  no  man 
doubt  his  own  genius  !  it  is  the  suicide  of  immortality  ! 

The  final  impulse  came  at  last,  not  from  Germany  the 
land  of  abstract  ideas,  nor  from  France  the  land  of  wit 
and  mathematics,  but  from  conservative,  plodding,  snob- 
bish, prosaic  old  England  the  land  of  tardy,  ungraceful, 
but  staunch,  indomitable  love  of  justice  aiid  the  truth. 

It  had  got  to  be  now  1858,  when  the  mouth  of  a  new  bone- 
cave  was  discovered  at  Brixham,*  five  miles  west  of  the  old 
Kent's  Hole,t  and  the  Koyal  Society  deputed  its  two  most 

*  Three  or  four  miles  west  of  Torquay. 

t  One  mile  east  of  Torquay.  In  this  cave  Priest  M'Encry  had  found 
about  1830,  in  red  loam  under  stalasrmite,  mammoth,  tichorine  rhinooeros, 
cave  bear,  &c.  &c.,  with  flint  ;  and  LycU  thinks  he  was  only  prevented  by 
his  respect  for  Bnekland  from  expressing  then  his  conviction  that  these 
were  0')ntei)ii)orary  fossils.     (Note  on  p.  97  of  Lyell's  Aut.  of  Man.) 


^1 


III.!  ANTIQUITY    OF    MAN.  59 

famous  diluvial  fossil  hunters^  Mr  Prestwicli  and  Dr 
Falconer  (retui*ned  from  a  glorious  career  in  India  and 
now  alas  lost  to  us  just  as  lie  had  become  one  of  the 
masters  in  our  Israel)  to  examine  it.  They  came  — they 
saw  — and  they  were  conquered.  The  united  length  of 
five  galleries  cleared  and  examined  was  several  hundred 
feet.  Their  width  nowhere  exceeded  eight  feet.  Some- 
times they  were  filled  to  the  very  roof  with  gravel,  bones, 
and  mud,  the  latter  always  covered  with  stalagmite,  from 
1  to  15  inches  thick,  itself  sometimes  containing  bones, 
e.  g.  a  perfect  antler  of  a  reindeer  and  an  entire  humerus 
of  a  bear.  The  loam  or  bone-earth  under  it  was  from  1  to 
15  feet  in  depth.  The  gravel  at  the  bottom  contained  no 
rehcs,  and  was  sometimes  more  than  20  feet  in  depth. 
No  human  bones  were  found,  but  many  flint  knives,  chiefly 
in  the  lowest  part  of  the  red  loam,  one  of  the  most  perfect 
having-  13  feet  of  bone-dirt  over  it,  and  some  of  them  found 
directly  underneath  the  extinct  forms  embedded  in  the 
stalagmite  covering  and  therefore  necessarily  of  an  older 
age.  To  add  certainty  to  the  date  a  perfect  knife  was 
found  close  to  and  on  a  level  with  the  left  hind-leg  of  a 
cave-bear,  which  had  all  its  parts  arranged  in  such  complete 
order  that  they  must  have  been  held  together  by  the  tis- 
sues when  they  were  floated  into  their  resting-place  be- 
side the  knife. 

One  more  step  taken  and  Boucher  de  Perthes  was  vindi- 
cated and  revenged.  The  step  had  to  be  taken.  The  ex- 
plorers could  not  help  noticing  that  the  country  about  the 
Brixham  cave  had  suffered  great  changes  to  permit  the  cave 
to  be  thus  filled.  The  valleys  had  been  lowered  at  least  60 
feet  since  the  introduction  of  the  gravel  to  the  cave.  Then, 
a  strong  stream  ran  throuo-h  it  rolling^  stones  alono-.  As 
the  waters  became  more  quiet  the  red  mud  was  deposited; 
finally,  the  alabaster  drippings  had  their  day,  interrupted 
by  recurrences  of  I'ainy  eras  of  unknown  duration.  The 
geological  age  of  the  deposit  was  therefore  immense.* 

Dr  Falconer,  shortly  afterwards,  on  his  way  to   Sicily 
stopped  at   Abbeville    and   wrote  to  Mr   Prestwich   that 
it  was  now  high  time  to  do  something  about  the  much-dis- 

*  See  Lyell's  discussion  of  the  change  of  climate,  based  on  the  cliaraoter 
of  the  Cyrena  jinminalis,  and  of  the  change  of  sea  level,  Ant.  Man,  pp. 
143,  177. 


60  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lECT. 

puted  flints  of  Boucher  de  Perthes.  Immediately  a  crowd 
of  people,  John  Evans,  Mr  Flower,  Sir  Charles  Lyell, 
Prof.  Rogers,  Mr  George  Pouchet,  M.  Gaudrv,  M.  Hebert, 
Desnoyers,  Quatrefages,  everybody,  now  rushed  down  to 
Abbeville,  to  St  Acheul,  to  Pouen  and  to  other  places  in 
the  valley  of  the  Somme,  to  pick  out  flint  implements  with 
their  own  hands  from  the  diluvium.  Soon  a  trade  sprung 
up  between  the  quarrymen  and  travellers  of  all  kinds. 
The  demand  began  to  exceed  the  supply.  The  workmen 
made  experiments,  and  finding  themselves  as  good  as 
savages,  forged  ancient  knives  with  modern  hammers  out 
of  the  diluvial  flints.  The  cabinets  of  Europe  and  America 
became  stocked  from  Moulin  Quignon  and  Menchecourt, 
and  the  whole  valley  of  the  Somme  fell  once  more  into 
disrepute. 

But  the  whole  thing  was  now  un  fait  a<',compli.  People 
were  at  last  convinced  that  man  was  no  exception  to  the 
fossil  world.  Englishmen  who  had  fought  so  long  against 
the  ante-diluvial  age  spread  themselves  through  the  libra- 
ries of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  over  the  bogs  and  deltas 
and  downs  of  Great  Britain,  only  to  discover  similar  worked 
flint  deposits  in  diluvium  with  extinct  animal  remains  in 
many  places  themselves,  and  records  of  such  discoveries 
by  others  more  than  two  centuries  before. 

A  new  impetus  also  was  imparted  to  the  exploration  of 
new  caves,  which  is  still  carried  on  with  unabated  energy 
and  fine  results.  I  have  already  tasked  your  patience  too 
severely  this  evening  to  impose  upon  you  further  even  a 
rude  sketch  of  what  these  last  seven  years  have  produced  : 
the  labours  of  Lartet  in  the  south  of  France  ;  the  discovery 
of  the  Neanderthal  skull  ;  the  explorations  carried  on  in 
the  lake  villages  of  Switzerland;  the  cleaning  out  of  a 
great  fissure  in  the  Gibraltar  mountain,  and  the  curious 
skeletons  found  therein  ;  the  discovery  of  human  bones  in 
the  diluvium  of  Abbeville  ;  *   the  claim  of  Desnoyers  to 

•  For  the  discussion  on  the  jaw.  see  Quatrefages  in  the  Contes  Rendus 
Lyell,  Vogt,  &c.  In  tlie  Bullet.  Soc.  Geologique  de  France,  xxviii.,  Nov., 
Dec,  1864,  p.  9.S,  M.  de  Morcey  refers  to  the  discovery  of  the  jaw,  28tli 
March,  1863,  and  subsequent  discoveries  by  Boucher  de  Perthes  of  others 
at  the  base  of  tlie  diluvium  and  in  tlie  top  sand-layers.  He  adds  that  he 
himself,  with  Dr  Dubois  and  M.  Butenx,  saw  others  taken  out  from  the  base 
of  the  deposit,  July  Ifith,  1864;  and  with  Boucher  de  Perthes,  Dubois, 
and  Rene  Yion,  Sept.  27th,  1864,  a  metacarpal  bone  and  left  index  per- 


III.]  ANTIQUITY    OF    MAN.  61 

the  determination  of  tertianj  human  relics  far  older  than 
the  post-tertiary  flint  instruments  of  St  Acheul  and  Abbe- 
ville.* Some  of  these  topics  should  come  up  again  in  my 
next  lecture   on  the  comparative  dignity  of  man. 

But  I  cannot  close  to-night  without  making  certain  that 
the  gist  of  the  question  of  man^s  comparative  antiquity 
is  clearly  understood.  It  is  not  a  question  of  a  definite 
number  of  years.  No  geologist  pretends  to  fix  an  exact 
date  to  any  event  in  geology.  It  is  one  of  the  comparative 
sciences,  essentially  so.  The  difference  between  tertiary 
and  post-tertiary  counts  for  almost  nothing  in  the  entire 
column  of  formations  w^hich  compose  the  crust  of  the  earth, 
as  the  tabular  view  next  page  will  show.  Yet  it  is  immense, 
enormous,  shocking  to  the  mind  of  man  when  applied  to 
his  historic  life  on  earth.  It  is  considered  a  triumph  of 
discovery  when  we  succeed  in  finding  a  reptile,  or  a  fish, 
or  a  plant  in  a  subordinate  formation  only  one  degree 
older  tlia*n  the  oldest  stratum  in  which  as  yet  we  have  dis- 
covered it.  The  whole  creation  has  seemed  as  if  creeping 
backward  — downward  in  the  column  of  rocks,  backward 
in  the  ages  — by  such  discoveries,  annually  nay  daily 
made  by  that  busy  crowd  of  lonely  explorers  whom,  if  we 
had  Uriels  eyesight,  we  might  see  creeping  and  climbing 
and  hammering  and  picking  and  pocketing  for  home  ex- 
amination, note-book  in  hand,  dispersed  all  over  the  civil- 
ized, and  here  and  there  to  be  descried  in  the  most  remote 
corners  of  the  uncivilized,  world.  These  men  are  poets, 
working  out  the  rhymes  and  the  rhythm  of  that  great 
psalm  of  life  which  is  to  be  sung  in  chorus  when  all  work 
is   done  ;  when  the  young  men  will  have  much  to  say  to 

fectly  preserved,  ascribed  by  Gaudry  to  an  adult  man  of  ordinary  size. 
His  whole  paper,  pp.  69—104,  is  full  of  interest;  it  is  entitled,  Note  sur 
les  elements  du  terrain  quaternaire  aux  environs  de  Paris,  et  specialement 
dans  le  bassin  de  la  Soninie  ;  par  M.  N.  de  Mercey.  It  is  illustrated  with 
numerous  excellent  sections,  &c.  Also  Troyon's  L'liomme  Fossile,  p.  30. 
*  I  say  nothing  of  the  human  pelvis  found  at  Natchez,  and  too  confidently 
accepted  by  Sir  Charles  Lyell  (p.  200),  because  grave  doubts  still  hover 
about  its  authenticity.  But  while  putting  these  pages  to  press  the  news 
from  Paris  was  received  that  at  the  meeting  of  the  International  An- 
thropological Society  in  that  city  in  August  of  this  year,  '  two  memoirs 
due  to  the  Abbe  Bourgeois  and  the  Abbe  Delaunay  have  established  be- 
yond doubt,  that  man  was  already  in  existence  at  tlie  epoch  of  the  Lower 
Pleiocene.'— See  also  Lvell's  discussion  of  the  Lava  Man  of  Denise  (Ant. 
Man,  p.  194). 


62 


THE    GEOLOGICAL 


[leoi. 


>■  Post-tertiary. 


LyelVs  Tabular  View  of  the  Fossiliferous  Strata.* 

Recent 
Post-pliocene 
Newer-1    , 
Older-  J  P^ 

Upper-1 


locene 


miocene 


Tertiary  or  Cainozoio. 


►Cretaceous 


1 

2 

3 
4 

5 

6  Lower-j 

7  Upper- 

8  Middle-  [-eocene 

9  Lower-   J 

10  Maestricht  beds 

TOT  '  >wliite  chalk 

12  Lower- J 

13  Upper- 1 

14  Gault     S-green  sand 

15  Lower- J 

16  Wealden 

17  Purbeck  beds 

18  Portland  stone 

19  Kimmeridge  clay 

20  Coral  rag 

21  Oxford  clay 

22  Great  Bath-l 

23  Inferior- 

24  Lias 

25  Upper- 

26  Muschelkalk 

27  Lower-  J 

28  Magnesian  limestone  or  Permian 

29  Coal  measures  1  n    i,     -r 

on  /-I    1-      -p  T        i.        ^Carbomieroas 

30  CarbomierouslimestoneJ 

o  ^  T  '  i-Devonian 

32  Lower-; 

33  UPP<"-jsiIurian 

6\-  Lower- J 

35  pPPor-|Q^j^^^,-.^^^^g^j,Q^i^j^ 

3()  Lower-J 

38  Lower-}^^"^'^^*^^° 

*  Antiquity  of  Man,  p.  7. 
complete  the  column. 


oolite 


Secondary  or 
Mesozoic. 


■Jurassic 


!>Triassic 


Primary  or 
Palaeozoic. 


The  Uuronian  and  Laureutian  are  added  to 


in.l  ANTIQUITY    OF    MAN.  63 

the  propliets  that  will  astonish  them.  And  nothing  will 
more  astonish  them  than  what  they  shall  hear  sung  of  the 
antiquity  of  the  race  which  they  belonged  to,  and  glorified, 
but  which  they  imagined  had  been  created  only  two  or 
three  thousand  years  before  their  individual  selves. 

I  said,  no  scale  of  years  !  I  must  modify  the  expression. 
I  should  have  said  no  scale  of  years  in  a  condition  to  be 
used.  Imagine  a  corps  of  detectives,  belonging  to  the 
secret  police,  excited  by  the  news  of  the  commission  of 
some  masterpiece  of  felony,  and  stimulated  by  profes- 
sional zeal,  ambition,  and  the  hopes  of  a  large  reward,  who 
have  come  upon  the  trail  of  the  criminals,  have  found 
traces  of  their  work,  have  collected  a  little  heap  of  letters 
torn  into  minute  fragments  by  the  rascals,  and  are  now 
sitting  round  a  table  sorting  the  tiny  shreds,  all  crumbled 
up  and  half  illegible  with  lying  in  the  mud.  See  them 
examine  piece  after  piece  and  utter  a  suppressed  exclama- 
tion when  they  detect  a  part  of  a  word  that  they  can 
recognize  !  See  them  lay  the  ragged  edges  of  a  dozen  of 
them  together  and  shift  and  turn  them  about  until  they  fit 
and  form  a  larger  piece  !  See  them  hand  their  odd  pieces 
across  the  table  to  each  other,  that  what  one  man  cannot 
use  another  may  be  more  fortunate  with  !  Until  the  hours 
go  by,  and  the  documents  beg"in  to  assume  a  form,  and 
the  handwriting  begins  to  make  sense,  and  the  key  is  got, 
and  they  break  up  the  midnight  party,  tired,  but  jolly, 
and  masters  of  the  evidence  that  shall  hano-  the  rog-ues  ! 

Such,  if  you  will  believe  it,  is  the  condition  of  the  scale 
of  years,  which  (originally,  perfect  and  abundant  evidence 
of  the  work  which  sunlight  and  moon-attraction  have 
been  doing  on  the  surface  of  the  earth)  has  been  all  torn 
to  pieces,  defaced  and  covered  up  by  the  same  cunning 
sun  and  moon, — is  now  being  picked  up  and  washed  and 
put  together  and  restored  by  the  geologists.  The  rings 
of  bark  in  trees  submerged  in  deltas ;  the  rain-drop, 
worm-trail,  footstep  impressions  left  on  the  thin  laminas  of 
tidal  estuary  mud ;  the  growth  of  peat  in  ditches  cut  for 
fuel  at  the  present  day ;  the  wear  and  tear  of  basaltic 
columns  against  which  abut  the  arches  of  a  Roman  bridge  ; 
the  number  of  lava  currents  and  interveningf  vegetable 
moulds  over  buried  cities ;  the  height  of  belts  of  teredo 
holes  around  the  columns  of  Jupiter  Serapis  at  Baias;  the 


64  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lECT, 

annual  rate  of  emergence  of  well-known  boulders  in  the 
waters  of  ttie  Gulf  of  Bothnia,  and  of  submergence  of  the 
missionary  villages  of  Greenland ;  *  the  measurement  of 
the  three  arches  of  black  mould  in  the  railway  cutting 
through  the  cone  of  the  Tiniere  in  the  Canton  de  Vaud, 
the  upper  arch  containing  iron  relics  of  the  Roman  age, 
the  middle  arch  containing  bronze  relics  of  the  copper  age, 
and  the  lowest  arch  containing  only  hammers  and  arrow- 
heads of  the  stone  age,  and  calculated  by  Morlot  to  be 
from  5000  to  7000  years  old ;  the  rate  of  growth  of  suc- 
cessive layers  of  cypress  forests  found  in  probing  the  plain 
of  New  Orleans;  the  rate  of  growth  of  the  concentric 
coral  reefs  of  Florida ;  the  annual  rate  of  increase  of  the 
Nile  sediment  obtained  by  many  scores  of  borings,  made 
across  the  valley;  the  rate  at  which  old  Sanscrit  books 
inform  us  of  the  settlement  of  the  valley  of  the  Ganges, 
and  the  filling  up  of  the  marsh  lands  of  Bengal ; — all  these 
and  many  more  are  fragmentary  shreds  of  a  scale  of  years, 
which  we  hope  some  day  to  put  together  so  that  we  can 
read  and  use  it  to  determine  the  length  of  time  between 
the  close  of  the  tertiary  era  and  the  present  day  ;  between 
the  close  of  the  tertiary  era  and  the  glacial  drift ;  or  if 
nothing  more,  the  date  of  the  glacial  epoch  itself,  previous 
to  which  it  seems  that  man  existed  on  the  earth. t 

*  Here  would  come  in  the  whole  subject  of  terrace  formations,  much  too 
extensive  a  theme  to  be  meddled  with  in  a  lecture.  See,  for  example, 
those  of  Quain  Clubbe,  in  Lyell's  Antiquity  of  Man,  p.  240.  See  also  J. 
r.  Campbell's  Frost  and  Fire,  i.  p.  357.  Lond.  1845.  Lyell's  Principles, 
XXX.  cli.  Chambers  made  the  Quain  Clubbe  terraces  respectively,  5G,  65, 
and  155  above  the  sea ;  but  at  Trondjim  there  is  one  522  feet  above  sea- 
level.  According  to  Celsius  and  the  ancient  geographers,  Scandinavia 
was  an  island  after  the  time  of  Pliny  and  before  the  9tli  century.  (Lvell, 
p.  52.) 

t  But  Lyell  seems  to  assert  the  contrary,  when  he  says  (Antiq.  Man, 
p.  241),  'This  period  [of  continental  ice],  probably  anterior  to  the  earliest 
traces  yet  brought  to  light  of  the  human  race,  may  have  coincided  \\ith 
the  submergence  of  England.'  '  And  the  accumulation  of  the  boulder-clay 
of  Norfolk,  Sulfolk,  and  Bedfordshire  '  (p.  218).  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
very  evident  from  Heer's  account  of  the  XJtznach  (Zurich)  peat-coal 
beds  (in  his  Urwelt  der  Schweiz)  occurring,  as  they  do,  between  two 
boulder-clay  formations,  that  there  were  two  separate  glacial  periods  with 
a  modern  climate  period  intervening.  So  too  the  Sahara  seems,  by 
Desor's  account  of  Mar^s's  discoveries  of  fresh-water  shells  (planorbis) 
92'"-  down  the  artesian  wells,  to  have  been  twice  submerged,  to  correspond 
with  the  two  glacial  eras.  Desor  shows  by  the  New  Zealand  glaciers, 
&c.,  the  improbability  of  any  nnkersul  glacial  era. 


Ill,]  ANTIQUITY   OP    MAN.  65 

In  conclusion,  I  will  adduce  one  more  such  fragment. 
It  is  not  only  a  remarkable  example  of  the  method  to  be 
used,  but  to  show  you  how  well  based  our  hopes  must  be. 
It  is,  in  fact,  the  latest,  the  finest,  and  if  it  were  proved 
genuine,  an  absolutely  perfect  demonstration  of  the  great 
antiquity  of  man.  It  is  not  in  any  of  the  books  ;  I  trust 
that  IVI.  Agassiz  on  his  return  from  South  America  will  be 
able  to  set  before  us  its  full  value.  I  obtain  it  through  my 
friend,  Dr  Henderson,  of  the  United  States  navy,  himself 
an  experienced  geologist.  But  the  actual  observer  of  the 
fact  was  a  Naturalist  of  Eio  Janeiro,  Dr  Ildefonso,  formerly 
well  known  to  the  scientific  world. 

Dr  Ildefonso,  with  his  amiable  daughters,  had  been 
amusing  themselves  for  a  number  of  years  before  Dr  H.''s 
visit,  in  exploring  the  stalagmite  caves  which  are  scattered 
over  a  considerable  region  around  the  harbour  of  Eio. 
He  had  obtained  a  multitude  of  fossils  from  a  bone-clay 
beneath  the  stalagmite  floor,  similar  to  that  which  charac- 
terizes the  ossuary  caves  of  Europe.  Among  these  fossils 
I  understand  that  he  had  found  the  vestiges  of  man.  But 
the  important  point  lies  here.  The  stalagmite  deposit 
over  the  bone-mud  is  not  an  amorphous  and  iri^egular 
plate,  as  it  necessarily  must  be  in  climates  like  ours  where 
rain  falls  at  all  seasons  of  the  year  and  the  dripping  of 
carbonated  waters  from  the  roof  must  needs  be  therefore 
continual.  The  climate  of  the  tropics  is  humid  only  half 
the  year  and  dry  the  rest.  Consequently  the  alabaster  of 
Brazilian  caves  shows  annual  laminae  of  gTOwth  analog-ous 
to  the  ring-growth  in  trees.  Now  Dr  Ildefonso  asserted 
that  he  and  his  daughters  had  repeatedly  counted  these 
annual  layers  and  found  them  number  as  high  as  twenty 
thousand. 

I  leave  you  to  draw  the  inference.  Agassiz  estimates 
the  age  of  some  fragments  of  a  human  skeleton  which 
Count  Pourtalos  found  embedded  in  a  coral  reef  in  Florida 
at  10,000  years.*  Dr  Dowler  estimates  the  age  of  a 
human  skeleton  found  beneath  the  fourth  cypress  forest  at 
New  Orleans   at  50,000  years. f     The  borings  of  Linant 

*  The  southern  half  of  the  peninsula  is  post-tertiary,  and  Agassiz 
says  135,000  years  were  needful  for  its  formation.  See  Nott  and 
Guddon,  p.  52. 

t  Types  of  Mankind,  p.  352. 


66  THE    GEOLOGICAL  [lKOT, 

Bey  brought  up  works  of  Egyptian  art  from  a  depth  of  72 
feet,  which  M.  Rosiere  estimates  at  30,000  years.  If 
Girard's  estimate  of  the  growth  of  the  Nile  mud  be  con- 
sidered more  correct,  the  burnt  bricks  found  to  the  depth 
of  60  feet  below  the  surface  in  the  borings  of  Hake  Kyan 
Bey  must  have  been  14,000  years  old.  Yet  these  are  mere 
modern  alluvions  compaz^ed  with  the  diluvium  of  Abbe- 
ville. And  this  again  can  bear  no  comparison  in  antiquity 
with  the  least  ancient  of  the  true  tertiary  strata.  My  own 
belief  is  but  the  reflection  of  the  growing  sentiment  of 
the  whole  geological  world — a  conviction  strengthening 
every  day,  as  you  may  with  little  trouble  see  for  your- 
selves by  glancing  through  the  magazines  of  current 
scientific  literature — that  our  race  has  been  upon  the  earth 
for  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years. 

In  what  condition  I  will  endeavour  to  suggest  in  the 
next  lecture. 

But  as  I  have  given  a  general  scheme  of  formations  on 
page  62,  and  as  I  have  referred  repeatedly  to  the  fossil 
species  with  which  the  remains  of  man  are  found  in  the 
ossuary  cave  mud  and  the  diluvium,  I  shall  add  here  the 
latest  classification  of  the  subdivisions  of  the  human  epoch 
based  on  contemporary  animal  remains,  and  given  by  Prof. 
B.  Eenevier,  of  Lausanne,  in  a  note  supplementary  to  the 
posthumoiis  work  of  M.  Troyon,  entitled  L'honime  fossile 
and  published  in  July  of  1867. 

M.  Lartet  distinguishes  four  ages  of  mankind  : — 1.  the 
age  of  the  great  cave  bear;  2.  of  the  elephant  and  rhino- 
ceros ;  3.  of  the  reindeer  ;  4.  of  the  aurochs. 

M.  Troyon,  following  M.  d^Archiac,  describes  in  his 
chapter  of  the  four  epochs  of  the  age  of  Stone  : — 1.  the 
epoch  of  the  great  bear;  2.  the  epoch  of  the  mammoth; 
3.  the  epoch  of  the  reindeer;  4.  the  epoch  of  the  Urus. 

M.  Renevier's  scheme  is  as  follows  : — 

I.  Epoch  Ant^-glacial,  in  which  man  was  contemporary 
with  the  Ele[ilias  antiqiivs,  Rhinoceros  liemitoeclius,  and 
Ursus  spelceus.  During  this  period  man  has  not  been 
proved  to  exist  in  the  Alpine  regions  of  Europe. 

II.  Epoch  Glacial,  during  which  man  was  contemporary 
with  the  Elephas  prirnigeniiis,  Rhinoceros  tichorldniis,  Ursus 
speJi-Pus,  &c.  Switzerland  desert  and  covered  with  glaciers, 
to  the  exclusion  of  man. 


in.]  ANTIQUITY   OP   MAN.  67 

III.  Epoch  Post-glacial^  during  which  man,  contempo- 
rary of  the  Ele^'has  pnmigenius  and  Cervus  tarandus,  had 
approached  the  Alpine  countries  as  near  as  Schussenried 
in  Wurtemberg. 

IV.  Epoch  Actual,  during  which  man  had  penetrated 
Switzerland,  with  the  Cervus  elaphus,  Bus  primigenius,  &c., 
and  begun  to  construct  plank  villages    on  piles   in  lakes 
which  had  the  same  water-level  as  at  present. 


LECTUEE  IV. 


ON    THE    DIGNITY    OF   MANKIND. 


Man  walks  enveloped  in  the  mystery  of  his  own  exist- 
ence. How  lie  exists  he  knows  not.  Why  he  exists  he 
can  only  conjecture.  What  he  is,  is  the  last  question  ever 
answered  to  his  satisfaction^  by  God,  by  nature,  or  by  his 
own  heart.  All  philosophies  have  been  poor  inventions  to 
manufacture  weak  replies  to  it.  To-night  we  stand  as 
helplessly  aghast  at  our  creation  as  if  no  generations  had 
preceded  us.  We  look  into  each  others'  faces  and  wonder 
how  it  comes  that  we  are  formed  erect,  intelligent ;  while 
things  around  us  creep,  or  swim,  or  fly,  speechless  and 
servile. 

Out  of  this  wonderment  has  sprung  the  science  of  Com- 
parative Zoology.  Anxious  to  know  ourselves,  we  turn 
from  side  to  side  to  examine  curiously  the  living  creatures 
in  the  world  about  us.  Perhaps  comparison  with  them 
will  teach  us  something. 

Among  the  endowments  of  our  human  nature  must  be 
numbered  a  keen  sense  of  its  own  dignity.  It  is  possible 
that  animals  may  enjoy  and  be  benefited  by  a  like  con- 
sciousness. Some  of  their  actions  intimate  as  much.  You 
remember  the  fable  of  the  Artist  and  the  Lion. 

The  artist  showed  the  lion  his  last  picture,  a  lion  slain 
by  a  man  who  stood  in  a  conquering  attitude  over  him. 
'  It  is  a  very  fine  painting,^  remarked  the  lion ;  '  that  is, 
considering  that  the  painter  was  a  man ;  but  if  we  lions 
were  artists  we  should  manage  the  subject  more  agreeably 
to  the  truth  and  fitness  of  things ;  the  posture  of  the  two 
principal  figures  would  be  reversed.' 

In  ancient  times  apologue  and  allegory  was  the  favourite 


ON   THE    DIGNITY    OF    MANKIND.  69 

form  of  uttered  wisdom.  Euclid  and  ^sop  ruled  the 
world  of  intellect  together ;  and  were  as  truly  the  masters 
of  the  masters  of  the  portico  and  the  grove  as  the  child  is 
father  to  the  man.  The  fable  is  a  key  to  the  transition  of 
man  from  a  state  of  barbarism  to  a  state  of  civilization. 
It  marks  the  joining  line  where  the  quick  observant  fancy 
meets  the  reflecting  intellect.  The  vivacity  of  nature  is 
not  yet  lost ;  the  majesty  of  knowledge  is  not  yet  quite 
assumed.  The  poet,  the  philosopher  has  been  born,  but 
the  fimiculum'  uteri  is  not  yet  cut.  The  fable  is  a  constant 
quantity  in  the  Development  Theory  ;  and  rules  as  mightily 
to-day  among  the  Red  Indians  of  America,  and  among 
the  boys  of  the  public  schools  of  Boston,  as  ever  it  did  in 
the  days  of  Samson  and  Abimelech. 

Necessity  is  the  mother  of  that  invention  which  we  call 
Natural  History.  Whatever  the  exigencies  of  the  savage 
life  demand,  that,  of  course,  monopolizes  all  its  energies 
of  observation.  The  Indian  tribes  of  our  North- West 
when  asked  the  name  of  any  one  of  the  thousand  flowers 
which  bloom  upon  their  prairies,  answer  simply,  '  flower.' 
They  have  but  this  one  name  for  all  of  them,  for  all  of 
them  are  useless.  But  if  you  ask  these  savages  the  name 
of  any  of  their  trees  you  will  receive  a  score  where  we  have 
only  one,  for  they  employ  a  separate  name  for  every  slight 
variety  of  every  species  of  growing  wood ;  because  their 
very  lives  depend  on  knowing  which  will  serve  them  best. 
Consequently,  the  names  they  give  describe  utilities.  It 
is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  savages  have  keener  senses, 
or  superior  powers  of  observation  than  the  highly-educated 
and  moi'e  intellectually  endowed  civilized  man.  For  dis- 
crimination is  more  the  product  of  systematic  language 
than  of  eyesight.  Yet,  on  certain  sides,  the  sides  of  life 
and  death  we  may  well  call  them,  the  unhappy  savage 
makes  himself  amazingly  acute.  His  names  for  things 
which  interest  him  ai^e  a  study  of  precise  description. 
But  he  always  seizes  his  victim  by  the  hair  of  the  head ; 
he  calls  things  only  by  their  initials;  therein  he  diflers 
from  our  naturalist  who  must  give  Christian,  middle,  and 
surname  in  full,  and  loves  to  add  the  title  and  address 
besides.  The  savage  lights  up  his  subject  with  a  flash  ; 
in  the  dark  chamber  of  the  pyramid,  his  living  tomb,  he 


70  ON    THE    DIGNITY  [lECT. 

walks  by  matchliglit,  not  by  sunlight.  But  his  match  is  a 
magnesium  wii*e ;  and  for  the  moment  that  it  lasts  it  shines 
forth  like  the  sun  itself. 

When  the  Cherokees  first  saw  the  horse  bestrode  by 
De  Soto  they  were  as  much  amazed  as  were  the  soldiers  of 
Fabricius  when  they  first  beheld  the  elephants  of  Pyrrhus. 
But  they  named  it  instantly  "  the  animal  with  a  single 
finger-nail.'^  Modern  science  has  made  no  better  general- 
ization than  this  uniungulus.  If  there  be  a  characteristic 
posture  for  a  frog  or  lizard  the  Algonquin  will  be  sure  to 
show  it  on  the  bowl  of  his  tobacco-pipe,  the  Mexican  on 
the  temple  sculptures  in  honour  of  his  god.  Ethnologists 
have  made  great  capital  out  of  this.  The  oblique  eye  and 
elevated  ear  of  the  Egyptian  eflfigy  is  one  of  the  archseo- 
logical  puzzles  yet  unsolved. 

The  same  instantaneous  play  of  instinct,  through  the 
observant  fancy  of  the  deaf  and  dumb,  sparkles  upon  the 
whole  surface  of  their  poetic  nomenclature.  They  catch 
the  slightest  peculiarity  of  each  individual  for  whom  they 
need  a  name  and  name  him  from  it  by  some  appropriate, 
imitative,  or  descriptive  gesture  : — one  from  a  mole  in  the 
cheek  ;  another  from  his  height  or  dwarfishness  ;  another 
from  always  sitting  cross-legged  ;  another  from  an  habitual 
pensiveness.  We  grade  nations  in  the  scale  of  civilization, 
by  this  propensity.  People  who  are  given  to  gesticulation 
when  they  talk,  the  Italians  and  the  French  for  instance, 
are  set  down  as  imperfectly  cultivated  nations  ;  for  gesti- 
culation when  spontaneous  is  imitative,  the  supplement  of 
language,  making  its  shortcomings  good.  The  well-bred 
gentleman  has  a  quiet  mien  because  in  his  position  the 
brain  relieves  the  body  of  all  responsibility ;  because 
abstract  ideas  take  the  place  of  concrete  examples  not 
only  in  his  solitaiy  hours  of  thought  but  in  his  intercourse 
with  gentlemen.  The  highest  conversation  goes  on  by 
hints,  not  by  descriptions  of  things.  The  intercourse  of 
low-bred  people  and  of  the  savage  world  of  man  in  every 
age   must  ever  be  the  prosy  iteration  of  details. 

The  development  of  the  savage  faculty  of  observation 
under  the  tuition  of  our  modern  information  makes  the 
technical  naturalist,  the  describer  of  details,  the  mere 
determiner  and  namer  of  species  of  animate  and  inanimate 
things.     This  is   the  lowest   order  among  men  of  science. 


17.1  OF    MANKIND.  71 

COBstituting  a  class  which  represents  the  savage  or  prim- 
eval man  iu  the  circle  of  the  highest  civilization  ;  a  class 
characterized  also  by  two  other  well-marked  traits  common 
to  savages — an  inordinate  jealousy  and  love  for  personal 
reputation  in  details — and  a  materialism,  springing  from 
too  close  and  too  unintei-rupted  dealings  with  liesh  and 
blood  alone.  Even  the  laws  which  this  class  of  naturalists 
discover  are  laws  of  form,  and  are  soon  personified  by  them 
as  the  sole  deities. 

No  student  of  nature  is  competent  to  be  ennobled  until 
he  has  begun  to  reason  largely  upon  his  observations  and 
to  put  his  well-bred  fancy  to  its  higher  trials  with  courage, 
hope,  and  modesty.  The  genuine  man  of  science  is  like 
the  new  spider  which  they  are  stud^'ing  at  the  Cambridge 
Botanical  Gardens.  It  has  two  spinnerets.  With  one  it 
spins  a  coarse,  strong,  silvery-coloured  thread  which  it  uses 
for  the  radii  and  stanchions  of  its  Aveb.  I'heu  afterwards 
with  the  other  it  spins  a  finei  golden-coloured  silk,  with 
which  it  fills-in  all  the  intervals,  and  so  completes  the  har- 
mony and  beauty  of  its  web,  establishes  unity,  and  makes 
a  net  for  every  kind  of  flies.  We  tie  our  observations 
together  with  our  theories.  We  strengthen  science  by  dis- 
cussing facts  ;  but  we  must  reason  on  them  or  they  bring 
us  in  no  food.  And  the  food  we  need  is  not  barren  facts 
for  the  understanding  so  much  as  noble  fertile  ideas  for 
the  soul. 

An  entomologist  who  neither  knows  nor  cares  to  know 
the  divine  effusions  of  the  Christian  heart — who  speaks 
with  contempt  of  all  philosophy — scoffs  at  the  mention  of 
the  spiritual — hoots  metaphysics  out  of  the  academy — and 
is  even  petulant  with  his  brother  nomenclators  if  they  ex- 
press some  natural  aspirations  of  the  human  heart  for  freer 
space  than  that  afforded  by  the  limits  of  a  memoir  on  the 
comparative  anatomy  of  Holothuria  Smensis  or  Spirlfer 
semi  reticulata — such  a  naturalist  (and  there  are  plenty  of 
them)  is  as  ridiculous  to  the  eye  of  science  as  is  the  clergy- 
man who  not  only  does  not  know  but  does  not  want  to 
know  the  normal  number  of  legs  in  the  fly  that  buzzes 
about  his  sermon,  or  in  the  sedate  old  lady  spider  that 
spins  in  the  corner  of  his  ceiling. 

In  nothing  is  the  narrowing  tendency  of  mere  termino- 
logical natural  science  more  clearly  seen  in  our  day  than  in 


72  ON    THE    DIGNITY  [leCT. 

the  copious  and  often  heated  discussions  to  which  the 
Development  Theory  as  applied  to  man  has  given  rise. 
At  the  risk  of  being  accounted  either  prosy  or  else  unin 
telligible  I  must  endeavour  to  give  some  account  of  this 
theory,  which,  whether  right  or  wrong,  is  too  important  to 
be  overlooked,  too  noble  to  be  despised,  too  nearly  related 
to  the  truth  to  be  treated  by  friend  or  foe  with  anything 
but  the  highest  respect.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  supplement  to  the 
Nebular  Hypothesis.  What  that  proposed  to  do  for  the 
worlds  in  space,  the  solar  system,  our  earth  and  its  whole 
inorganic  constitution,  this  purposes  to  do  for  the  organic 
kingdoms,  taking  the  subject  of  creation  up  where  its 
first  chapter  ends — where  life  begins.  Together,  the  two 
theories  form  one  tremendous  whole,  one  scheme  of 
thought,  the  highest  reaching  after  transcendental  truth 
which  the  intellect  of  man  has  ever  made. 

The  subject  has  been  regarded  from  three  points  of  view. 
Three  questions  may  be  asked  respecting  the  plan  of 
creation.  One  is  a  German  question ;  one  is  a  French 
question ;  one  is  an  English  question.  Let  them  come  in 
that  order. 

Hegel,  the  master  of  modern  German  philosophy  until 
recently — and  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  all  the  rest  of  the 
German  metaphysicians — consider  matter  a  mere  pheno- 
menon of  mind.  They  believe,  as  Bishop  Berkeley 
taught,  that  all  thiugs  are  ideas.  They  ask  :  What  Plan 
had  the  creative  intellect  within  itself  ?  What  was  the 
primeval  order  of  the  Creator^s  thoughts  ?  They  say  :  If 
we  can  discover  that,  we  need  ask  no  more,  for  what  we 
look  at  is  not  real ;  things  are  not  what  they  seem ; 
creation  is  the  dream,  the  reverie,  the  phantasia  of  the 
Infinite  Intelligence. 

Opposed  to  this  transcendental  school  stands  the  po- 
sitivism of  Comte  and  his  numerous  followers,  perfectly 
characteristic  of  French  thought,  French  life,  French 
taste,  French  science.  According  to  this,  we  know  what 
we  know  because  it  is  knowable  fact,  because  the  visible 
universe  is  a  great  reality,  because  its  actions  towards  us 
are  genuine  and  complete  instruction.  But  of  God  and 
his  intelligence  we  know  nothing.  The  plan  of  creation 
is  a  catalogue  of  the  actual  sequences  and  consequences  in 
nature. 


rv.]  OF    MANKIND.  73 

In  England,  that  clear,  wise,  gentle  writer  of  our  day, 
Herbert  Spencer,  is  just  now  busy  resuming  all  tliat  a  third 
class  of  thinkers  have  been  saying  iu  what  may  be  called, 
with  some  propriety  an  eclectic  system  ;  somewhat  uncer- 
tain, as  all  eclectics  must  be ;  but  eminently  practical,  as 
all  Englishmen  must  also  be.  On  the  one  hand,  they  deny 
that  we  can  learn  the  secrets  of  the  Divine  Will ;  on  the 
other  hand,  they  den}'  that  we  can  prove  the  truth  of  facts 
as  everlasting  facts.  They  prefer  to  say  that  we  can  only 
see  with  the  eyes  given  us  and  reason  with  the  logic  of  a 
man.  They  demand  only  what  is  that  best  mode  of  organ- 
izing our  observations  in  a  reasonable  manner  so  as  to 
produce  the  most  harmonious  and  satisfying  system  of 
nature  as  it  seems  to  us  ;  leaving  the  questions  of  reality, 
certainty,  divine  intention,  and  all  that,  entirely  out  of 
mind  for  the  pi'esent. 

You  will  not  be  displeased  if  I  decline  to  enter  more 
deeply  into  explanations  or  discussions  of  these  various 
philosophic  stand-points  in  a  lecture  devoted  to  a  special 
subject.  It  would  be  easy  to  point  out  the  numerous  absurd- 
ities and  inconsistencies  which  the  uncommitted  thinker 
cannot  be  blind  to  in  their  advocates,  even  while  he  finds 
himself  bending  more  favourably  to  one  than  to  another 
according  to  the  constitution  of  his  mind  and  the  subject 
nature  of  his  studies.  Yet  it  is  by  the  counterblasts  of 
these  three  great  winds  of  doctrine  that  the  waves  have 
been  tossed  so  high  about  the  double  question  of  the 
Nebular  Hypothesis  and  Development  Theory.  The  grand 
debate  is,  on  the  one  hand,  whether  God  had  any  forth- 
going,  consistent,  consecutive,  advancing,  and  developing 
plan  in  his  own  mind  before  he  created  the  universe ;  or 
w^hether  he  fixed  such  a  law  of  development  in  its  nature  ; 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  all  such  supposed  plans  are 
merely  in  man^s  eye ;  the  useful  but  vain  endeavour  of  us 
intelligent  spectators  to  grasp  the  details  of  this  divine  in- 
vention in  some  systematic  mode,  to  avoid  confusing  our 
own  intelligence.  If  there  be  no  plan  except  such  as  each 
man  can  feign  unto  himself,  science  has  nothing  to  do  with 
it.  But  if  there  be  one,  then  science  cannot  rest  until  it 
be  made  out  precisely,  completely.  If  it  be  in  nature, 
nature  will  show  it  by  her  works,  or  rather  by  her  growth. 
If  it  be  in  God,  God  will  declare  it,  seriatim,  by  miracle  or 


74  ON   THE    DIGNITY 


[LBCT. 


otlierwise.  If  it  be  in  both,  man  cannot  fail  to  learn  it 
sooner  or  later ;  even  if  its  most  perfect  comprehension  be 
reserved  for  higher  intelligences. 

You  will  say  that  this  is  all  words  !  words  !  I  grant  it. 
And  yet  this  represents  the  first  stage  of  the  controversy; 
and  makes  those  who  ofi'er  '  divine  plans '  for  considera- 
tion the  enemies  of  those  who  deny  all  possibility  of  a 
divine  plan  outside  of  the  human  mind.  The  hostility  of 
supporters  of  different  divine  plaxis  towards  each  other  has 
a  different  foundation.  One  school  accuses  the  other  of 
excluding  God  from  nature;  of  refusing  the  Creator  access 
to  his  own  creation.  The  other  school  retorts  that  it  is 
superstition,  not  reverence,  to  require  the  painful,  toil- 
some, endless  supervision  and  revision  of  the  Deity,  if  his 
work  be  perfectly  constructed  at  the  outset,  and  full  of 
living,  moving,  renovating,  growing  forces,  like  a  tree  or 
human  brain.  Between  these  combatants  who  can  me- 
diate ?  None  but  Deitv  itself.  Science  has  no  argument 
paramount  to  close  the  lists  or  proclaim  the  victor.  Science 
is  the  study  of  phenomena,  not  of  essences ;  the  measurer, 
not  the  explainer  of  forces  ;  the  observer,  not  the  com- 
prehender  of  the  laws  of  nature. 

But  even  when  we  abandon,  as  we  must,  all  transcend- 
ental considerations,  and  confine  the  subject  strictly  within 
the  pale  of  science,  we  still  hear  vehement  debating.  If 
we  ask  men  of  science  whether,  when  they  examine  the 
universe,  the  world  we  live  in,  the  life  of  the  planet,  they 
discover  traces  of  confusion  and  disorder,  they  answer 
unanimously,  No  !  Everything  works  according  to  fixed 
laws  now ;  everything  seems  to  have  come  into  being  in  an 
orderly  manner  through  all  past  ages. 

But  if  we  ask  them  what  particular  order,  or  plan,  or 
system  can  be  made  out  according  to  which  the  progress 
of  events  can  be  classified  they  begin  at  once  to  contra- 
dict each  other. 

Remember  that  I  am  only  speaking  of  the  world  of  life, 
of  the  organic  forms  of  living  beings.  Setting  aside 
minor  differences  of  view  among  botanists  and  zoologists 
I  will  designate  three  principal  divergent  theories  of  the 
development  of  life  upon  the  planet,  based  all  of  them  upon 
that  record  which  is  written  in  the  rocks,  and  which  yoa 
will  find  imperfectly  described  in  the  best  and  latest  works 


IV.]  OK    MANKIND.  75 

on  geology.  All  agree,  1.  That  there  is  an  evident  progress 
in  the  appearance  of  higher  and  higher  forms  upon  the 
plauot  through  the  geological  ages.  All  agrce^  2.  That 
the  exact  epoch  of  the  appearance  of  this  or  that  form  can- 
not be  made  certain;  first,  because  the  record  in  the  rocks 
is  itself  not  complete  ;  and,  secondly,  because  our  examin- 
ation of  the  record  is  still  less  complete.  New  discoveries 
every  day  teach  us  to  be  careful  how  we  dogmatize  about 
one  shell  having  been  created  before  another,  or  about  the 
absolute  non-existence  of  any  bird  during  the  previous 
reptilian  era,  &c.  All  agree,  3.  That  a  multitude  of  inter- 
mediate or  synthetic  types  (as  they  are  now  called)  will  be 
discovered,  making  the  series  more  complete,  filling  up 
gaps  between  widely  diS'erent  kinds  or  genera,  to  say 
nothing  of  species,  of  animals  and  plants.  There  have 
lately  been  found,  for  instance,  fossil  horses  with  deer^s 
feet,  mammoths  with  the  marsupial  pouch,  a  lizard  with 
feathered  wings  and  tail,  showing  how  little  prepared  we 
are  yet  to  establish  our  schedule  of  organic  forms. 

But  all  agree,  nevertheless,  4.  That  taking  what  has  been 
discovered  altogether,  there  is  a  marked  order  in  point  of 
time  not  to  be  mistaken.  The  most  numerous  fossils  in 
the  earliest  rocks  are  corals,  sea-weeds,  bivalve  shells,  and 
such  low  forms  of  animated  nature.  In  the  formations 
over  those  we  find  land  plants  and  fishes  of  low  forms  in 
vast  dbundance.  In  still  higher  rocks  we  first  find  multi- 
tudes of  reptiles,  and  cephalopods  among  the  shells.  Still 
later  comes  the  age  of  birds ;  later  still  that  of  the  mam- 
mals and  deciduous  trees ;  last  of  all  as  a  characteristic 
feature,  man. 

All  agree,    however,   5.  That  this   order    of    events  is 
general,  not  special ;  and  only  appears  on  a  grand  sketch 
from  which  a  multitude  of  inconsistent   or  confusing  or 
doubtful  details  are  left  out. 

Still  all  agi-ee,  6.  To  accept  this  general  system  of  devel- 
opment as  a  rude,  rough  whole ;  a  kind  of  blocking  out 
the  statue ;  and  that  it  must  mean  something. 

But  now  for  what  it  means.    Now  they  begin  to  disagree 
coming  to  particulars. 

The  first  debate  arises  over  the  question  of  the  solidarity 
of  the  system.  One  party  contending  that  there  is  no 
hreah  in  it.     The  other  party  takes  exactly  the  opposite 


76  ON   THE    DIGNITY  [lECT, 

ground^  contending  that  there  can  be  no  real  connection  in 
it ;  that  the  breaks  in  the  line  are  infinite ;  that  they  are 
patent  to  every  eye,  and  form  in  fact  the  very  basis  of  the 
science  of  geology.  Mr  Agassiz  has  gone  so  far  as  to  as- 
sert that  two  fossils,  although  exactly  similar  to  the  human 
eye,  cannot  be  of  the  same  species  if  they  are  found  in 
different  formations  however  near ;  and  he  has  applied 
the  same  canon  to  the  subject  of  different  localities  in  one 
age,  affirming  that  two  shells,  although  to  all  appearance 
of  the  same  species,  cannot  be  in  reality  the  same  if  found 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic*  On  the  other  hand,  Mr 
Darwin,  following  up  the  arguments  of  Lord  Monboddo, 
M.  Lamarck,  and  Mr  Chambers,  and  followed  in  his  turn 
by  Grey,  and  Huxley,  and  other  first-class  botanists  and 
zoologists, — Mr  Darwin  has  astonished  the  world  with  the 
opinion,  that  there  can  be  no  radical  disconnection  between 
any  two  living  beings  ;  and  that  all  geological  gaps  would 
be  filled  up  and  bridged  over  with  intermediate  forms  if 
our  search  after  them  were  but  sufficiently  shrewd  and  pro- 
tracted. He  asserts  in  fact,  that  nature  started  with  the  idea 
of  simple  cell-life,  which  gradually  increased,  combined,  im- 
proved, and  perfected  itself  through  an  infinity  of  forms  of 
plant  and  animal,  until  we  see  all  things  as  they  stand  and 
move  to-day.  Monboddo  and  Lamarck  indeed  gave  fan- 
ciful accounts  of  this  extensive  and  mysterious  process ; 
applying  their  theories  chiefly  to  the  case  of  man,  to  ex- 
plain why  he  had  left  the  trees  or  the  shore,  and  how  he 
had  lost  his  tail.  To  the  great  naturalist  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean  belongs  the  honour  of  organizing  in  a  reasonable 
manner  this  side  of  the  qviestion.  It  has  therefore  come 
to  be  known  by  the  name  of  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  as 
well  as  by  any  other.  I  must  refer  you  to  his  own  descrip- 
tion of  that  theory  of  '  Natural  Selection,'  by  which  he 
tries  to  account  for  the  transition  steps  along  the  line  of 
change,  and  to  explain  the  sudden  and  frequent  breaks 
which  are  apparent  in  its  course.  It  is  a  great  thought, 
and  deserves  the  honours  heaped  upon  it.  And  all  allow 
that  it  is  true  if  kept  within  the  regions  of  variety.  But 
whether  it  be  true  for  actual  specific  differences,  and  tliere- 
fore  for  changes  of  genus,  family,  or  class,  there  are  vehe- 

*  Mr  Conrad,  who  not  two  years  ago  opposed  this  view  as  extravagant, 
now  seems  inclined  to  acquiesce  in  it  as  probably  correct. 


IV.]  OF   MAXKIND.  77 

ment  disputings.  And  I  can  see  no  mode  of  settling  tliem 
if  we  cannot  take  nature  in  the  very  act  of  exchanging  one 
species  for  another,  or  converting  one  species  into  another. 

The  second  subject  of  debate  respects  the  unity  of  the 
system.  Is  there  but  one  series;  or  ai'e  there  several 
parallel  series  of  organic  forms  ? 

The  Immortal  Cuvier  established  the  grand  quaternion 
of  tjrpes  which  all  modern  comparative  zoology  virtually 
accepts.  He  divided  the  animal  world  into  Radiata  or 
creatures  constructed  as  if  branching  out  from  a  centre 
in  several  directions,  like  star-fish, — Articulata,  creatures 
constructed  by  addition  lengthwise,  like  the  worms, — Mol- 
lusca,  creatures  with  two  parts  symmetrically  fitting  along 
a  vertical  line,  like  the  clam, — Vertehrata,  creatures  with  a 
backbone,  or,  as  Agassiz  would  have  it,  with  two  parts 
unsymmetrically  fitting  along  a  horizontal  line. 

The  question  then  comes  up,  whether  between  these 
four  plans  on  which  all  animals  are  made  there  can  be 
discovered  any  logical  distinction  as  to  worth  or  dignity. 
The  radiates,  it  is  true,  are  all  low  creatures.  But  among 
the  articulates  we  find  the  bee ;  and  among  the  molluscs 
the  cuttlefish,  both  of  them  creatures  of  high  breeding  and 
intelligence.  The  great  development  of  brain  indeed  be- 
longs exclusively  to  the  vertebrates;  but  so  far  as  we 
can  see,  there  was  yet  no  inherent  impossibility  in  the  at- 
tachulent  of  such  a  brain  to  any  radiated  or  annulated  body. 
In  fact,  the  backbone  of  a  vertebrate  is  itself  an  annulated 
system,  giving  off  nervous  branches  from  a  series  of  gangli- 
onic nodes.  It  is  argued  then  with  some  plausibility,  that 
these  four  capital  types  of  animal  creation  have  no  com- 
parative dignity  in  themselves;  and  that  that  is  an  idio- 
syncrasy of  man.  They  are  each  and  all  perfectly  and 
beautifully  adapted  to  their  circumstances, — the  mollusca 
to  the  waters,  the  articulata  to  the  air,  the  vertebrata  to 
the  land,  and  the  radiates  to  the  planes  and  lines  where 
air  and  land  and  water  meet.  It  ought  not,  therefore,  to 
be  expected  that  one  or  other  of  them  should  take  pre- 
cedency in  the  creation  either  in  respect  to  government 
or  in  respect  to  seniority.  In  other  words,  the  earliest 
dawn  of  life  should  show  us  at  the  same  time  molluscs 
inhabiting  the  sea,  insects  in  the  air,  vertebrates  on  land, 
and  radiates  where  land  and  water  meet. 


78  ON   THB    DIGNITY  [lECT. 

Now  how  stand  the  facts  ?  In  the  Potsdam  sandstone, 
the  rock  at  the  base  of  the  Lower  Silurian  system,  and  the 
oldest  rock  in  which  fossils  have  been  found  in  both  variety 
and  abundance,  there  are  multitudes  of  corals  and  seaweed, 
multitudes  of  worms  and  trilobites,  multitudes  of  bivalves 
and  univalves,  and  the  foot-prints,  at  least,  of  vertebrate 
animals,  which  make  the  representation  of  all  the  four 
kingdoms  complete. 

If  there  has  been  a  Darwinian  development  of  animal  life 
upon  the  planet,  then  it  looks  as  if  it  had  been  carried  out 
along  four  lines  rather  than  one.  Four  stand-points  of  creat- 
ive energy  must  have  been  assumed ;  four  startiugs  out  of 
life  must  be  accounted  for ;  four  mysteries,  four  miracles, 
four  beginnings  of  creation,  to  be  developed  instead  of  one  I 
But  where  all  is  mystery  and  miracle  additions  are  hardly 
noticeable.  It  becomes  Mr  Darwin's  business,  then, not  only 
to  suggest  some  plausibly  rational  mode  by  which  one  spe- 
cies could  gradually  or  suddenly  pass  the  short  interval 
which  separates  it  from  another  ;  his  explanation  must  suf- 
fice to  bridge  the  awful  chasms  which  have  always  kept 
these  four  great  plans  of  structure  separate  along  the  lines 
of  their  development.  He  must  show  us  how  an  animal  of 
radial  growth  could  be  developed  into  one  of  linear  growth. 
Nay,  he  must  fill  up  the  immense  interval  between  the 
plant  and  the  animal ;  and,  finally,  the  chasm  between  the 
atom  of  carbon  or  hydrogen,  and  the  nucleated  cell  of  albu- 
men or  fibrin.  He  must  explain  the  genius  of  life  itself  before 
he  can  make  his  law  of  natural  selection  stand  for  anything 
more  than  a  beautifully-worded  description  of  the  ills  that 
all  flesh  falls  heir  to  when  it  is  born  upon  this  planet.  How 
it  is  born  upon  the  planet  is  another  matter  and  remains 
unexplained  by  his  hypothesis.  We  do  not  get  rid  of  mira- 
cles by  chasing  them  back  along  the  ages  to  the  starting- 
point  and  concentrating  them  there.  A  line  of  battle  is 
not  necessaidly  vanquished  and  annihilated  when  it  is  rolled 
up  by  an  attack  upon  one  flank,  when  there  is  a  reserved 
force  at  the  other  end. 

You  see,  this  train  of  argument  attacks  not  so  much  the 
special  statements  of  the  Darwinian  hypothesis,  as  its  very 
foundiitions.  It  says  to  Mr  Darwin,  My  dear  sir,  you  have 
four  times  as  much  to  do  as  you  thought  you  had.  You 
must  nut  imly  explain  how  a  man  came  from   a  monkey. 


IV.]  OF   MANKIND.  79 

and  a  monkey  from  a  squirrel,  and  a  squirrel  from  a  bat, 
and  a  bat  from  a  bird,  and  a  bird  from  a  lizard,  and  a  lizard 
from  a  fish  ;  but  you  must  suggest  some  possible  means  of 
transforming  a  vertebrate  fish  out  of  a  shell  fish,  or  out  of 
a  jelly  fish,  or  out  of  a  lobworm  or  trilobite  ;  then  you  must 
go  on  to  show  us  how  the  first  trilobite,  or  the  first  coral 
animal,  or  the  first  rhizopod  was  obtained  by  your  process 
of  natural  selection  out  of  still  earlier  vegetable  species. 
Xay,  you  cannot  even  stop  there.  You  must  explain  the 
very  first  appearance  of  living  tissue  out  of  the  inorganic 
elements  of  dead  matter.  The  world  is  not  a  unit ;  it  is 
like  the  magic  ivory  balls  of  the  Chinese  shops,  globes 
within  globes,  worlds  within  worlds — all  visible  through 
the  holes  in  each  other's  peripheries. 

Now  what  is  the  Darwinian  answer  to  this  objection,  de- 
rived from  Cuvier's  four-fold  classification  of  the  animal 
kingdom  ?  This : — Cu^der  may  not  have  made  an  abso- 
lutely perfect  classification.  There  may  be  intermediate 
forms,  which  we  cannot  yet  be  certain  where  to  place; 
which,  when  discovered,  will  fall  as  naturally  under  one 
plan  as  under  another.  We  are  not  yet  quite  sure  that 
there  are  just  four  distinct  and  sharply  defined  lines  of 
living  type-form ;  we  are  not  sure  that  nature  lays  out  her 
work  in  lines  at  all.  She  is  not  as  linear,  at  all  events,  as 
our  Hterality  would  have  her  be. 

There  is  a  just  tendency  in  the  new  schools  to  establish 
rather  a  circular  classification.  The  great  disciple  of  Cuvier, 
whom  you  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  attach  to  your 
own  city  and  university,  and  whose  impulse  all  American 
sciencehas  been  feeling  now  for  twenty  years,  has  elucidated 
the  four  types  of  animal  life  and  their  common  appearance 
at  the  beginning  in  lectures  which  he  has  delivered  in  this 
room.  I  have  not  the  courage  even  to  saunter  through 
the  meadows  which  he  owns.  I  refer  you  to  his  own 
masterly  arguments.  He  is  a  vehement  anti-Darwinian. 
But  even  against  this  master  of  the  subject  I  must  warn 
you.  He  has  great  opponents.  And  the  most  recent  dis 
coveries  are  also  against  him.  There  have  lately  been  dis- 
covered infinitely  older  fossils  than  tftose  I  just  now  al- 
luded to  in  the  Potsdam  sandstone.  I  hold  in  my  hand  a 
specimen  of  the  oldest  fossil  in  the  world ;  and  lo,  it  is  a 
rhizopod,  a  creature  belonging  to  the  very  lowest  forms  of 


80  ON    THE    DIGNITY  [lECT. 

life.  It  is  true  these  lowest  forms  are  peculiarly  fitted  for 
preservation  in  the  fossil  state ;  others  of  higher  form  may 
have  co-existed  with  them  and  been  destroyed.  But  when 
we  see  these  lowest  of  all  known  forms  standing  alone  at 
the  very  beginning  of  time,  and  man,  the  highest  and 
noblest  form,  appearing  at  the  end,  and  an  unmistakable 
gradation,  always  uinvard,  through  the  long  ages,  and 
along  all  the  four  lines  of  plan — what  open  mind  can  help 
imbibing,  if  not  the  Darwinian  doctrine,  at  least  the  spirit 
of  the  Theory  of  Development  ? 

But  this  leads  me  to  the  third  head  of  the  discussion : 
the  always  upvmrd  direction  of  the  development  of  life- 
forms.  This  also  has  not  been  left  unquestioned.  One  of 
the  most  popular  and  powerful  thinkers  that  geology  ever 
owned  was  the  lamented  Hugh  Miller.  Large-minded 
and  erudite,  trained  by  patient  personal  investigation  in 
the  field,  with  a  great  brain  and  a  great  love  of  truth,  he 
was  also  a  religious  enthusiast,  bigotedly  orthodox  in  the 
sense  of  Geneva.  His  views  therefore  as  a  speculative 
geologist  were  peculiar,  but  none  the  less  worthy  of  con- 
sideration, for  they  insisted  upon  the  introduction  of  such 
exceptional  phenomena  as  the  advocates  of  the  Develop- 
ment Theory  were  too  much  inclined  to  ignore.  He  op- 
posed the  theory;  and  upon  the  ground  that  it  was  not 
complete ;  that  not  only  were  there  breaks  in  the  series  of 
hfe-forms  which  could  not  be  got  over,  but  actual  reversals 
of  direction.  He  argued  for  a  law  of  development  actually 
downwards,  or  backwards,  as  well  as  for  a  law  of  develop- 
ment forwards  and  upwards.  It  is  true  that  he  made  the 
law  of  degeneracy  subordinate;  but  he  still  insisted  that 
it  was  not  exceptional,  but  universal,  and  included  in  the 
other.  His  notion  was,  that  life  advanced  not  in  an  ob- 
liquely rising  straight  line  but  in  a  succession  of  higher  and 
higher  parabolic  curves.  Each  type  as  a  whole  he  allowed 
to  be  nobler  than  the  type  preceding  it,  but  not  in  every 
part  or  throughout  its  whole  career.  He  preferred  to 
imagine  each  type  beginning  below  the  maximum  dignity 
of  the  type  preceding  it;  then  rising  forward  to  a  maximum 
dignity  superior  t#  that  of  the  type  preceding  it ;  then 
falling  away,  degenerating  and  decaying  to  extinction. 
He  instanced  our  varieties  of  fruits  and  the  rise  and  decay 
of  families  of  men    as  examples  of  this  law    subject   to 


IV.]  OP   MANKIND.  81 

inspection  in  our  day.  Including  size  and  number  among 
the  elements  of  dignity  he  showed  how  the  fossil  Irish  elk 
excelled  in  size  and  strength  any  now-existing  ruminant ; 
how  the  cave-bear,  the  aurochs,  the  mammoth,  the  Siva- 
lensian  turtle,  the  dinodon,  each  and  all  excelled  the  bears 
and  oxen,  elephants,  turtles,  and  kangaroos  of  the  present 
day ;  how  the  m^osses  of  the  coal-measures  were  as  large 
as  our  trees;  the  frogs  of  the  middle  secondary  age  as 
large  as  modern  elephants.  Each  age,  said  he,  has  been 
indeed  an  advance  upon  the  previous  age,  and  has  brought 
forth  new  illustrations  and  finer  ones  of  the  Creator's 
skill.  But  each  age  has  had  its  own  superior  glories  not 
to  be  dimmed  by  any  exhibitions  of  a  later  date.  Each 
type  has  been  quite  perfect  in  itself,  was  made  entirely 
suitable  for  the  time  and  place  of  its  creation ;  rose  up  to 
power ;  took  full  possession  of  its  whole  inheritance  ;  grew 
to  its  utmost  size;  completely  did  its  work;  but  when  its 
time  was  past  fell  off  and  withered ;  grew  small  and  weak 
and  perished  to  give  place  to  the  next  type,  ordained  to 
a  like  destiny.  The  appearance  of  man  upon  the  earth, 
clad  in  beauty,  armed  with  dominion,  but  after  a  time  of 
glory  falling  from  his  first  estate  and  becoming  savage 
and  degenerate,  seemed  to  his  eyes  a  natural  illustration 
of  this  law.  And  in  like  manner  he  would  explain  the 
coming  of  Christ  at  the  end  of  the  old  dispensation ;  and 
the  rise  of  the  Christian  Church  followed  by  its  decay.  In 
the  same  spirit  he  anticipated  a  millennium,  and  the  appear- 
ance of  angelic  men  perhaps  to  fall  in  tarn  like  Lucifer 
and  all  his  angels. 

Geoloo'ists  read  Huo^h  Miller's  book  with  as  much  de- 
light  as  do  other  people.  But  they  do  not  accept  his 
Theory  of  Development ;  the  facts  on  which  it  was  ap- 
parently based,  when  critically  examined,  do  not  sustain 
it.  And  every  geologist  must  feel  that  such  a  theory  could 
never  have  been  suggested  by  a  summary  of  all  known 
facts  relating  to  the  subject  to  any  mind  not  prepossessed 
by  a  certain  set  of  theological  ideas.  It  was  the  last 
struggle  of  orthodoxy  against  natural  science  embodied  in 
geology.  Orthodoxy  may  well  be  proud  of  its  advocate 
and  apotheosize  his  memory;  but  no  cause  could  be 
won  so. 

I  would  not  dare  to  go  into  a  detailed  discussion  of  the 


82  ON    THE    DIGNITY  [lECT. 

doctrine  of  development  this  evening.  The  literature  of 
the  subject  is  already  copious,  learned,  well  and  clearly- 
argued,  and  within  easy  reach  of  every  one  who  feels 
desirous  to  arrive  at  some  conclusion.  I  have  only  aimed 
at  stating  the  question,  and  suggesting  that  it  is  an  open 
question  not  only  between  theologians  and  geologists  but 
between  one  class  of  men  of  science  and  another,  and  that 
it  ought  to  be  no  bugbear  in  the  path  of  generous  and 
truthful  minds. 

The  aim  of  the  Creator  seems  to  be  to  fill  out  all  the 
possible  details  of  his  great  plan^  to  realize  all  possible 
plans,  modes,  conditions,  forms,  powers,  accidents,  and 
relations.  The  highest  artist  wears  the  least  mannerism. 
Infinite  variety  is  the  clue  to  the  labyrinth  of  the  universe. 
Infinite  variety  is  in  fact  the  only  law  of  natural  history 
as  yet  fully  and  completely  established  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  mind  of  the  naturalist.  It  has  been  made  the  law 
of  every  individual  life. 

First  let  us  look  within.  Does  not  our  education  pro- 
ceed by  alternate  synthesis  and  analysis  of  perceptions  ? 
We  collect  facts ;  we  combine  and  compare  them ;  we 
perceive  their  likeness,  and  discover  what  we  call  laivs. 
Then  we  take  these  synthetic  laws,  and  go  to  work  again, 
seeking  new  illustrations  and  confirmations  of  them.  In- 
stead of  that  we  perceive  exceptions  and  denials.  We  learn 
to  contrast  and  discover  difierences;  we  analyze,  or  separ- 
ate, or  tear  to  pieces  what  we  had  put  together  and  con- 
solidated. We  have  to  do  it.  We  find  that  bad  bricks 
have  got  into  our  wall ;  inharmonious  tints  have  been 
chosen  for  our  pattern.  We  build,  we  weave  again,  now 
more  successfully.  Thus  we  advance ;  thus  we  enrich  our 
life,  the  world,  and  history. 

Turning  our  eyes  again  towards  God,  do  we  not  see 
Him  at  the  same  kind  of  alternate  synthetic  and  analytic 
creation  ?  Herbert  Spencer  calls  it  the  law  of  Difierentia- 
tion  j  and  shows  u^  how  the  forces  of  matter  first  aggre- 
gate and  then  disintegrate  the  solid  parts  of  the  world, 
condensing  the  gases,  combining  the  bases,  dissolving  the 
salts,  crystalizing  the  deposits,  tearing  down  the  moun- 
tains, building  up  the  valleys,  alternately  consolidating  and 
dispersing,  an-anging  and  disturbing,  forming  and  re- 
forming, until  that  variety  has  been  produced  which  char- 


TV.]  OP   MANKIND.  83 

acterizes  the  present  state  of  things.  He  shows  how  the 
present  variety  of  human  society  has  been  accomplished 
on  the  same  principles;  the  endless  variety  of  art,  of 
thought. 

But  we  are  only  concerned  now  in  seeing  how  truly  the 
law  holds  good  in  Natural  History  proper.  Whether  we 
suppose  one  or  another  classification  best,  it  all  comes  to 
this  in  the  end  :  every  nook  and  cranny  of  the  world  has 
got  itself  somehow  filled  with  living  forms,  all  fashioned 
agreeably  to  the  circumstances  of  the  place  of  their  exist- 
ence. As  these  circumstances  vary  infinitely,  so  must  the 
living  forms.*  If  there,  be  an  apparent  advancement  and 
ennoblement  of  living  forms  through  the  ages,  it  must  be 
dependent  in  some  reasonable  manner  upon  some  slow  ad- 
vancing movement  in  the  physics  of  the  globe  with  which 
the  living  forms  must  stand  in  amicable  harmony.  In 
geology  therefore  there  must  be  some  explanation  for  all 
the  phenomena  of  palasontology.  If  man  did  not  exist 
until  quite  recently,  we  must  conclude  that  the  earth  was 
not  prepared  for  him  till  recently.  And  so  of  all  the  other 
and  lower  creatures.  This  teaches  us  the  needlessness  of 
any  transcendental  treatment  of  the  developmeut  theory ; 
and  the  wisdom  of  those  who  keep  the  discussion  of  it 
down  to  pure  Natural  History  facts. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  and  important  consequences 
of  the  law  of  Differentiation  bears  directly  upon  the  his- 
tory of  Man.  Differentiation  is  not  only  the  production  of 
variety,  but  the  production  of  rtmltltude.  Both  are  de- 
pendent (but  in  different  ways)  upon  the  bewildering  net- 
work of  cross  acting  physical  forces  which  support  and 
also  destroy  life.  If  these  physical  forces  actuall}''  j^roduce 
living  forms,  we  see  at  once  that  they  must  generate  them 
in  multitudinous  crowds.  If  they  do  not,  but  only  sus- 
tain  them  and  destroy  them,  we  see  that  the  Creator  was 
under  a  physical  necessity  to  place  in  existence  great  mul- 
titudes of  living  forms  if  he  desired  any  of  them  to  con- 
tinue to  exist.     This  is  true  not  only  respecting  the  mul- 

*  If  there  be  90  per  cent,  of  carbonate  of  lime  in  the  sea,  there  must 
be  a  vast  over-proportion  of  infusorial  forms  to  appropriate  it,  while 
a  corresponding  proportion  of  infusorial  life  of  another  kind  appropriates 
the  remaining  10  per  cent,  of  silica.     (See  Jukes'  Manual,  p.  134,  135,  f.) 


84  ON   THE    DIGNITY  [lECT. 

titude  of  individuals,  but  respecting  the  multitude  of 
varieties  or  species. 

What  do  we  see,  then,  when  we  look  around  us  ?  First, 
as  to  the  multitude  of  individuals.  There  are  supposed, 
indeed,  to  be  a  thousand  millions  of  human  beings  on  the 
earth  :  but  this  is  nothing.  There  are  a  thousand  millions 
of  mosquitoes  in  a  single  swamp.  Bach  female  fish  pro- 
duces a  million  of  young  fry  per  annum.  Is  this  a  law  of 
life  ?  Yes  !  but  it  is  still  more  a  law  of  death.  The  final 
cause  of  this  fecundity  must  be  discovered  rather  among 
the  destroying  agencies  of  nature  than  among  its  sustain- 
ing hai'monies.  We  notice,  therefore,  that  those  animals 
are  most  prolific  whose  individual  lives  are  least  secure ; 
and  these  are  what  we  call  the  lowest  forms  of  life.  We 
call  them  so  because  daily  wholesale  destruction  gives  us 
the  sense  of  waste  and  consequently  of  woi'thlessness. 
These  are  the  forms  which  would  exist  during  the  earlier 
and  more  adventurous  days  when  quaking  lauds  and  hiss- 
ing seas  and  steam-filled  skies  made  the  vexed  earth  a 
most  unnatural  mother ;  quite  unsafe  to  trust  her  with 
children  of  a  riper  nature  than  corals  and  sea- weed. 

What  is  true  of  the  multitudes  of  individuals  is  equally 
and  for  the  same  reason  true  of  the  multitudes  of  specific 
forms.  Each  species  has  a  hahitat  and  is  fitted  to  it.  The 
development  theory  supposes  the  hahitat  to  have  fitted  up 
its  own  specific  forms.  Whether  that  supposition  be  true 
or  false  matters  little  ;  the  fact  remains  unchanged  in 
either  case  that  each  change  of  circumstances  causes,  or 
necessitates,  or  is  accompanied  by,  some  specific  differ- 
ence. Now  if  an  animal  can  only  change  its  nature  to 
suit  a  change  in  its  circumstances  it  need  not  perish. 
But  this  is  a  high  faculty,  scarcely  exercised  by  any  plant 
or  animal  excepting  man  and  a  few  of  the  mammalia  which 
keep  about  him.  Even  these  exert  the  power  of  adapta- 
tion so  imperfectly  that  they  are  sure  to  perish  in  the  long 
run  when  taken  from  one  climate  to  another;  and  man 
himself  can  only  accomplish  the  immense  feat  of  per- 
manent migration  at  the  risk  of  individual  destruction,  and 
by  calling  to  his  help  the  whole  physical,  intellectual,  and 
spiritual  worlds  to  be  his  body  guards. 

Nature  grants  the  right  of  selecting  its  own  food  to 
every  creature  that  consents  to  remain  within  the  limits  of 


lY  1  OF    MANKIND.  85 

its  own  habitat.  There  and  there  only  nature  has  provided 
exactly  for  the  demands  of  its  stomach,  and  its  stomach  is 
the  wise  guardian  of  the  interests  of  the  rest  of  its  consti- 
tution. Liberty  is  perfect,,  because  the  necessary  and  the 
pleasant  can  be  secured  by  the  mere  exercise  of  will.  Mi- 
crration  must  destroy  or  at  least  limit  this  freedom  of  the 
will.  The  animal  that  invades  territory  destined  to  sup- 
port the  life  of  other  animals  unlike  its  own  finds  poisons 
when  it  seeks  for  meat,  and  must  endure  the  consequences. 
'Tis  now  a  choice  of  evils.  The  right  to  roam  and  choose 
at  its  own  sweet  will  is  gone.  The  will  is  now  subjected 
bv  a  judgment  rendered  anxious  and  unhappy  by  self-evi- 
dent want  of  harmony  between  its  suffering  desires  and 
nature's  strange  provisions.  To  this  law  all  animals  must  be 
subjected  which  attach  themselves  to  man.  But  in  the  high- 
est degree  it  is  the  key  to  the  development  of  man  in  history. 
The  wider  the  migration,  the  greater  the  embarrassment, 
the  keener  the  suffering ;  the  more  subjected  the  will,  the 
more  unfolded  the  intellect  and  passions ;  for  hunger  is 
fierce  and  cunning,  while  satiety  is  unobservant  as  an  oyster 
and  gentle  as  a  lamb. 

Thus  it  happens  that  every  possible  slightest  shade  of 
variation  in  the  conditions  of  existence  must  be  a  trump 
of  doom,  or  else  must  be  provided  against  in  the  plan  of 
the  Creation  by  some  equally  subtile  variation  in  the 
organs  of  life.  This  is  the  only  explanation  for  that  in- 
credible number  of  specific  forms  distinguishable  among 
the  lowest  ranks  of  animated  nature.  Think  of  it  !  A 
German  entomologist  has  made  out  820  species  of  insects 
preserved  in  the  pieces  of  amber  which  form  his  cabinet, 
all  of  them,  mites,  gnats,  mosquitoes,  proboscidians  or 
sucking  flies,  who  met  their  fate  by  sticking  fast  in  a  gum 
which  exuded  from  trees  of  tertiary  age,  growing  in  moist 
low  places  sheltered  from  the  wind.  Of  all  these  species 
only  30  were  such  as  now  belong  to  the  mosquito  tribes  of 
Europe ;  100  were  species  which  we  have  at  present  living 
in  America ;  but  not  one  out  of  the  whole  820  was  like  any 
of  the  numerous  species  of  mosquitoes  known  in  the  south 
of  Africa. 

Think  again  of  the  numberless  species  of  corals  belong- 
ing only  to  one  age.  Mr  Sydney  S.  Lyons'  cabinet  of 
Devonian  and  Silurian  crinoids  at  Louisville,  in  Kentucky, 


86  ON   THE    DIGNITY  [l.KCT. 

magnificently  furnished  as  it  is  with  genera  and  species, 
gives  but  a  faint  conception  of  the  multitudes  of  separate 
beautiful  forms  which  specify  the  various  physical  condi- 
tions under  which  that  family  of  the  radiated  animals  has 
struggled  so  bx'avelyj  but  often  so  unsuccessfully,  to  con- 
tinue to  exist. 

But  as  we  approach  our  own  times,  and  a  quieter  bosom 
gives  suck  to  worthier  embodiments  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
divine,  more  self-sustaining,  more  adaptable  to  circum- 
stances, more  hardy,  more  migratory,  or  more  inventive, 
we  see  how  these  countless  multitudes  become  more  moder- 
ate swarms,  vast  herds  become  small  flocks,  flocks  turn 
to  single  pairs.  Life  has  grown  safe.  A  genus  need  no 
longer  put  forth  its  hundred  specific  forms,  like  tentacles, 
to  cling  withal  to  the  tempestuous  earth.  Instead  of  one 
bear  for  the  summer  and  another  for  the  winter,  one  bear 
will  do  for  both  provided  he  may  hybernate.  One  set  of 
birds  for  north  and  south  will  be  enough,  if  you  will  teach 
them  to  migrate  twice  every  year.  Let  man  be  but  a 
single  species,  yet  if  you  give  him  a  mind  to  be  his  own 
tailor,  shoemaker,  house-carpenter,  shipbuilder,  farmer, 
and  gunsmith,  he  may  inhabit  the  whole  earth  from  pole 
to  pole.  This  is  the  great  argument  for  unity  of  species 
in  the  case  of  man ;  a  subject,  however,  to  be  taken  up  in 
my  next  lecture.  We  are  speaking  now  of  the  dignity  of 
man ;  and  of  the  likelihood  that  his  numbers  will  be  small 
in  inverse  proportion  to  his  powers  of  resistance  to  those 
fatal  forces  of  surrounding  life,  beneath  the  blows  of  which 
all  meaner  images  of  God  have  been  in  past  times  over- 
thrown and  utterly  destroyed. 

It  is  this  ability  of  man  to  protect  himself  against  nature 
that  aSbrds  us  an  explanation  of  the  paucity  of  his  remains 
as  fossilized.  For,  in  the  first  place,  as  I  have  just  ex- 
plained, the  race  of  man  has  been  a  scanty  race.  And,  in 
the  second  place,  the  individual  man  has  been  a  cuyming 
fellow,  always  on  his  guard  :  foresighted  against  the  ma- 
licious tricks  and  brutal  damages  of  nature ;  wisely  sus- 
picious of  the  quagmires  and  quicksands  in  which  the 
stupid  mammoths  were  entombed ;  prompt  to  devise  ex- 


IV.]  OF    MANKIND.  87 

pedients  for  recover}^  in  disaster^  and,  above  all,  able  to 
form  leagues  for  mutual  life  insurance.  Yet  with  all  his 
superior  advantage  nature  was  sometimes  too  much  for 
him.  As  I  narrated  in  my  last  lecture,  men  have  been 
fossilized  just  like  inferior  brutes.  As  the  eruption  of 
Vesuvius  in  Pliny's  days  caught  a  few  sleepers  and  a 
sick  man  or  two  when  all  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Herculaneum  and  Pompeii  made  good  their  escape ;  so  in 
an  age  immensely  older  than  the  pyramids,  a  torrent  of 
volcanic  mud  captured  one  of  the  flying  aborigines  of  cen- 
tral France,  part  of  whose  skeleton  is  now  in  the  museum 
of  Le  Puy.  The  crater  from  which  *he  torrent  came  be- 
longs to  a  group  the  fires  of  which  have  been  extinct  since 
the  days  when  the  rhinoceros  and  lion  were  at  home  in 
western  Europe   before  the  glacial  epoch. 

The  care  which  men  have  always  taken  to  secure  the  bodies 
of  their  relatives  and  friends  from  decay  has  been  the  chief 
cause  of  their  utter  disappearance  from  the  earth.  Reli- 
gious veneration  has  produced  the  same  effect  in  ages  when 
dead  bodies  were  burned  instead  of  bm-ied.  The  supersti- 
tious dread  of  being  devoured  by  wild  beasts  after  death 
has  caused  many  races  to  suspend  their  corpses  in  baskets 
from  the  boughs  of  trees,  ensuring  speedy  dissolution. 
Yet  the  buried  bones  of  ancient  heroes,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  have  been  occasionally  exhumed  by  floods  and  swept 
into  caves  and  buried  again  in  a  broad  common  alabaster 
sarcophagus  in  the  most  effectual  manner. 

In  spite,  then,  of  the  paucity  of  human  beings  to  be  fos- 
silized, and  in  spite  of  the  care  which  they  have  always 
taken  not  to  be  fossilized,  they  have  not  always  escaped 
fossilization.  But  the  conditions  under  which  human  fos- 
silization  became  possible  were  so  hard  to  realize  that  every 
case  was  an  exception  to  that  law  which  has  made  the  strata 
of  the  earth  so  many  cemeteries  of  the  past,  so  many 
museums  for  the  present.  Every  new  discovery  of  a  fossil 
human  bone  of  ancient  date  is  a  sort  of  natural  miracle 
wrought  specially  for  science. 

In  studying  out  mane's  role  in  the  great  drama  of  the 
Development  of  Animal  Life  we  depend  greatly  upon 
these  precious  relics  of  his  existence  in  an  older  era  than 
the  present.  But  in  determining  man's  relative  dignity 
in  the  o-rand  scale  of  animal  life   we  have  other  and  abund- 


88  ON    THE    DIGNITY  [l,ECT. 

ant  materials  for  thought.  That  scale  not  only  ascends 
through  all  the  ages,  but  stands  to-day  before  us.  The 
earth  is  still  crowded  with  the  representatives  of  most  of 
the  departed  forms.  Details  are  changed,  but  Natural 
History  continues  still  the  same.  Man  can  be  classified  by 
what  he  is,  as  well  as  by  what  he  has  been.  If  we  need 
see  all  that  he  can  be,  we  need  but  travel  from  land  to 
land,  from  city  to  countiy,  from  continent  to  island,  from 
field  to  forest,  from  mountain  to  desert,  from  the  ice-fields 
of  Greenland  to  the  jungles  of  India  and  the  swamps  of 
the  gulf  of  Guinea;  everywhere  some  new  variety  of  man 
will  offer  itself  for  ©ur  examination, — surrounded  by  as 
various  forms  of  lower  life   with  which  to  be  compared. 

In  spite  of  all  this  wealth  of  opportunity  zoologists  have 
found  it  a  most  dij0&cult  task  to  give  an  adequate  and  satis- 
factory definition  of  the  animal  called  Man. 

'  Linnaeus  led  the  way  in  this  field  of  inquiry  by  compar- 
ing man  and  the  apes  in  the  same  manner  as  he  compared 
these  last  with  the  Carnivores,  Ruminants,  Eodents,  or 
any  other  division  of  warm-blooded  quadrupeds.  After 
several  modifications  of  his  original  scheme,  he  ended  by 
placing  Man  as  one  of  the  many  genera  in  his  Order 
Primates,  which  embraced  the  apes  and  lemurs,  and  also 
the  bats  ;  for  he  found  these  last  to  be  nearly  allied  to  some 
of  the  lowest  forms  of  monkeys.  But  all  those  modern 
naturalists  who  retain  Linnseus's  ordel'  Primates,  agree  to 
exclude  the  bats  (cheiroptera),  and  most  of  them  class 
Man  as  one  of  the  families  of  this  order  Primates.^* 

Blumenbach  (following  Linnaeus  in  1779)  proposed,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  separate  Man  entirely  from  the  Mon- 
keys. He  called  the  latter  '  fourhanded '  quadnimana. 
His  definition  of  Man  was  short  and  simple  enough : 
animal,  erectum,  himanum.  Buffon  had  used  the  same 
terms  in  a  somewhat  different  way  13  years  before. 
Cuvier  used  them  again  12  years  later.  He  placed  the 
apes,  monkeys,  and  lemurs  together  in  one  grand  order, 
and  man  in  another  order  by  himself. 

In  spite  of  the  authority  of  these  four  great  names, 
modern  zoologists  have  preferred  to  make  man  standalone, 
not  indeed  as  an  order,  but  simply  as  a  family.     Professor 

•  Lyell,  Aut.  of  Man,  ch.  xxiv. 


IV.]  OF    MANKIND.  89 

Huxley  *  even  repudiates  the  very  term  quadrumanous. 
He  tajkes  the  ground  that  the  hind  extremities  of  monkeys, 
apes,  and  lemurs,  bear  no  true  resemblance  at  all  to  the 
hand  of  man.  ^J'hey  are  in  all  respects  not  hands  but  feet. 
On  the  other  side  he  affirms  that  there  is  no  anatomical 
difference  of  type  between  the  hand  of  a  gorilla  and  the 
hand  of  a  man.  The  hand  of  the  gorilla  is  merely  clum- 
sier, heavier,  and  furnished  with  a  shorter  thumb.  The 
foot  of  the  goi-illa  he  shows  to  possess  also  the  three  char- 
acteristic features  of  the  human  foot :  1.  By  the  same 
arrangement  of  the  tarsal  bones  ;  2.  By  the  presence  of 
the  same  short  flexor  muscle  and  short  extensor  muscle  of 
the  digits ;  and,  3.  By  the  presence  of  the  same  peculiar 
muscle  called  the  feronceus  longus.  The  only  difference 
which  can  be  mentioned  is  merely  formal,  viz.  that  the 
great  toe  of  the  gorilla  is  more  movable  than  man's.  In 
fact,  there  would  be,  according  to  this,  less  difference 
between  the  extremities  of  man  and  the  gorilla  than 
between  those  of  the  gorilla  and  orang-outang  ;t  and  yet 
others  of  the  monkey  tribe  have  still  more  widely  diver- 
gent extremities. 

In  like  manner  a  comparison  of  the  teeth  of  man  with 
those  of  the  apes  and  monkeys  has  failed  to  establish  them 
in  separate  orders.  '  The  number  of  teeth  in  the  gorilla 
and  in  all  the  Old  World  monkeys,  except  the  lemurs,  is 
32,  the  same  number  as  in  man.  The  general  pattern  of 
the  crown  of  the  tooth  is  also  the  same.  All  the  American 
apes,  however,  have  38  teeth.  The  only  real  distinction 
between  the  jaw  of  the  apes  and  the  human  jaw  consists 
in  the  fact  that  the  eye-teeth  of  the  apes  project  almost 
like  tusks.' 

If  we  institute  a  like  comparison  as  to  other  portions  of 
the  frame  we  are  led  to  the  same  results.  There  are 
sometimes  remarkable  differences  between  one  human  race 

*  lluxley's  third  '  Lecture  ou  the  motor  organs  of  man  compared 
with  tliose  of  otlier  animals,'  R.  School  of  Mines  (March,  ISBl),  embo- 
died in  his  'Evidence  as  to  man's  place  in  Nature.'  \\'illiams  and 
Norgate,  Loudon,  lS6i.     [In  Lyell,  Ant.  of  Man,  ch.  xxiv.] 

■\  The  thumb  of  the  orang  differs  by  its  shortness  and  absence  of  any 
special  long  flexor  muscle  from  that  of  a  gorilla  more  than  it  ditfers  from 
that  of  man.  The  carpus  of  the  orang  and  of  most  of  the  lower  apes 
contains  nine  bones;   that  of  a  chimpanzee,  gorilla,  and  man,  only  eight. 


90  ON    THE   DIGNITY.  [lECT. 

and  another.  Two  years  ago,  Dr  Broca,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Anthropological  Society  of  Paris,  was  good  enough  to 
show  me  nearly  100  human  skeletons  which  he  had  recently 
procured  from  a  cave  of  the  Stone  age,  discovered  by  an 
English  gentleman  in  preparing  a  park  for  his  new  country- 
house  about  ten  leagues  north-east  of  Paris.  Dr  Broca 
pointed  out  to  me  one  striking  peculiarity  in  the  anatomy  of 
the  arm-bones  of  this  ancient  race.  There  was  a  round 
foramen  pierced  through  the  thin  curtain  of  bone  which 
connects  the  two  processes  at  the  elbow.  He  assured  me 
that  he  had  examined  hundreds  of  arm-bones  obtained  from 
cemeteries  of  the  Merovingian  age,  but  none  of  them  ex- 
hibited this  hole.  Nor  is  it  to  be  found  in  the  modern 
human  skeleton,  except  among  the  Hottentots.  But  it  is 
a  characteristic  mark  of  the  ape  and  monkey  anatomy. 

There  is  a  fourth  ground  of  comparison.  If  we  can 
learn  nothing  from  the  hands,  the  feet,  the  teeth,  the  bones, 
cannot  we  succeed  better  by  comparing  the  shape  and  the 
size  of  the  skull  with  its  containing  brain  ?  Professor 
Dana,  of  New  Haven,  dissatisfied  like  the  rest  with  all  other 
tests,  finds  refuge  in  this.  He  thinks  he  has  established 
for  the  whole  i^nge  of  life-development  a  common  law, 
which  he  names  the  law  of  Cephalization.  All  animal 
forms  are  worth  precisely  their  weight  of  brain.  Man  is 
the  noblest  creature  because  in  him  the  digestive  and  the 
locomotive  systems  become  at  last  subordinate  to  the  per- 
ceptive and  the  reasoning  faculties.  I  cannot  give  you  the 
details  of  his  ingenious  reasoning.  The  tendency  of  zoology 
has  for  a  long  time  been  to  this  conclusion.  But  even 
here  there  appears  no  distinction  of  kind  but  only  of 
degree. 

Owen,  in  1857,  unable,  as  he  says,  to  appreciate  or  con- 
ceive of  the  distinction  between  the  psychical  phenomena 
of  a  chimpanzee  and  of  a  Boschisman,  or  of  an  Aztec  with 
arrested  brain-growth,  proclaimed  his  return  to  Blumen- 
bach^s  and  Cuvier^'s  old  classification,  making  man  a 
separate  sub-class,  based  upon  three  cerebral  characters. 
Owen's  assertion  was  that  man  differs  from  the  three 
mammalian  classes,  represented  by  the  ape,  the  beaver, 
and  the  kangaroo, — 1.  in  the  overlapping  of  his  cerebral 
hemispheres  forward  so  as  to  cover  the  olfactory  lobes,  and 
backward  so  as  to  cover  and  quite  conceal  the  cerebellum. 


IV.]  OP    MANKIND,  91 

when  looked  down  upon  from  above  :  2.  In  the  presence 
of  what  is  called  the  '  posterior  horn  of  the  lateral  ven- 
tricle ; '  and,  3.  In  the  addition  to  the  hind  lobe  of  each 
hemisphere  of  what  is  called  the  '^  hippocampus  minor. '^ 

Upon  the  publication  of  this  theory  a  storm  arose.  It 
was  shown  that  Owen's  picture  of  the  brain  of  a  chimpanzee, 
which  he  took  from  a  Dutch  work,  printed  in  1849,  and  on 
which  he  based  his  comparison,  was  worthless,  because  it 
had  been  drawn  from  a  shrunk  specimen.  M.  Gratiolet, 
'  the  highest  authority  in  cerebral  anatomy  of  our  age,' 
showed  by  new  drawingsf  from  fresh  specimens,  that  no 
such  distinctions  between  the  brain  foi-ms  of  man  and  the 
chimpailzee  could  at  all  be  made  out.  The  human  brain 
which  he  dissected  was  that  of  a  Bushwoman  exhibited  in 
London.  He  showed  that  the  human  and  the  simian 
brains,  however  convoluted  in  man,  however  smooth  in  the 
marmoset,  instead  of  having  Owen's  distinctions,  have  four 
grand  characters  in  common  ;  1.  a  rudimentary  olfactory 
lobe;  2.  A  posterior  lobe,  not  uncovering,  but  completely 
covering  the  cerebellum  ;  3.  A  well-defined  '  fissure  of 
Silvius ; '  and,  4.  A  posterior  horn  in  the  lateral  venti-icle. 

To  settle  the  dispute  which,  upon  this,  broke  out  afresh 
fifteen  genera  of  Old  World  and  New  World  apes  and 
monkeys  dying  in  the  Zoological  Gardens  of  London 
were  dissected ;  representing  almost  all  the  forms  in  dis- 
pute, from  that  of  the  chimpanzee  the  next  to  man,  to 
that  of  the  lemur  farthest  removed  from  man.  The  con- 
clusion arrived  at  from  these  and  from  other  Continental 
examinations  which  were  made  at  the  same  time  was,  that 
Owen's  distinctions  had  no  foundation  in  point  of  fact.  J 

Nothing  remains  but  the  superior  volwnie  of  the  human 
hraiji,  1.  Absolutely,  i.  e.  when  compared  with  the  volume 
of  the  ape's  bi-ain  ;  and,  2.  Relatively,  i.  e.  when  we  com- 
pare the  brain  of  a  man  with  the  bulk  and  weight  of  his 
body ;  and  the  brain  of  an  ape  with  the  bulk  and  weight  of 
its  body. 

Now  Professor  Huxley  says  that,  so  far  as  he  is  aware, 

_  *  Owen,  Proc.  Linn.  Soc.  Lond.,  vol.  viii.  p.  20.      Archencephala  was 
his  new  sub- class  name.     (Lyell,  Ant.  Man,  xxiv.  p.  48 i.) 

t  The  false  and  true  drawings  are  placed  opposite  each  other  in 
Lyell,  pp.  482,  483. 

X  See  Rolliston's  summary  on  p.  489  of  Lyell. 


92  OK    THE    DIGNITY  [lECT. 

no  human  adult  cranium  contains  less  than  62  cubic  inches, 
and  that  the  most  capacious  gorilla  skull  measured  no  more 
than  34^;  a  difference  between  them  of  say  two  to  one — a 
tremendous  dilSerence  !  The  difference  between  the  small- 
est human  skull  measured  by  Morton,  viz.  63  cubic  inches, 
and  the  largest  human  skull,  which  measured  114,  is  also 
something  tremendous — nearly  two  to  one.  If  volume  of 
brain  then  be  the  criterion,  the  mathematical  statement 
of  man^s  relation  to  the  ape  will  be  expressed  by  the  series 

114  :  63  :  34^. 
But  the  series  will  not  be  complete  until  we  add  the  size 
of  the  smallest  gorilla  adult  skull  yet  measured,  which  was 
24  cubic  inches.  It  is,  you  see,  a  descending  sef'ies,  and 
nothing  more — 114  :  63  :  34|  :  24.  We  may  add,  however, 
still  lower  figures,  and  keep  very  nearly  the  same  propor- 
tions from  among  the  crania  of  the  lower  orders  of  apes. 

Language  is  no  criterion,  for  every  animal  has  a  language 
of  its  own.  The  sense  of  the  ridiculous  is  possessed  by 
brutes,  who  laugh  with  their  eyes,  or  tail,  if  not  with  their 
whole  face  as  man  does.  The  faculty  of  worship  in  itself 
is  no  distinction ;  for  the  devotion  of  a  dog  to  his  master, 
of  a  lover  to  his  mistress,  of  a  Christian  to  his  Saviour,  of 
an  angel  to  his  God,  has  the  same  essential  root  so  far  as 
we  can  see.  Susceptibility  to  improvement  is  not  peculiar 
to  man  ;  nor  the  natural  law  by  which  there  occurs  an  he- 
reditary accumulation  of  acquired  powers.  This  also,  and 
all  the  before-mentioned  criteria  are  only  available  for  a 
difference  in  degree,  but  not  for  a  difference  in  kind,  distin- 
guishing man  above  the  rest  of  the  creation. 

When  we  notice  the  intelligence  of  the  dog  and  the  ele- 
phant whose  t3rpe  of  brain  is  more  remote  from  man,  and 
see  how  they  manifest  the  possession  of  the  moral  faculties, 
displaying,  as  they  do,  the  sense  of  shame,  of  justice,  of 
loyalty,  of  compassion,  we  find  out  how  little  distance  our 
reasoning  can  go  ;  how  imperfect  are  our  data,  how  myste- 
rious are  the  functions  of  all  brain  matter,  how  temperate 
we  ought  to  be  in  entertaining  convictions  in  regard  to  the 
relationship  of  man  to  other  animals,  how  sound  and  high 
our  hope  of  self-improvement  should  become,  and  what 
grandeur  resides  in  the  Apostle^s  words — '  forgetting  the 
things  that  are  behind,  and  pressing  forward  to  those  that 
are  before.' 


rv.]  OF    MAXKIXD.  93 

Here,  as  in  so  many  other  similar  cases,  science  is  en- 
tirely at  fault  — Rasselas  sitting  at  the  foot  of  the  wall 
that  suiTOuilds  his  happy  valley.  I  think  I  can  see 
around  me  in  society  sufficient  evidences  that  man  is  a  de- 
veloped monkey.  But  what  of  that  ?  Shall  a  wise  man 
kill  himself  for  shame  because  his  ancestor,  ten  generations 
back  removed,  was  hung  for  felony  ?  What  does  it  con- 
cern us  that  our  naked  and  painted  forefathers  danced  their 
devilish  orgies  round  shrieking  victims  set  on  fire  in  towers 
of  wicker-work,  making-  night  hideous  and  the  angels  hide 
their  faces  in  pity,  horror,  and  disgust!  I  confess,  for  my 
own  part,  aside  from  all  considerations  of  actual  science,  I 
like  to  see  every  tub  stand  upon  its  own  bottom.  This 
pride  of  civilization  seems  to  me  the  pride  of  parvenus. 
If  mankind  were  oi-iginally  apes,  they  have  at  all  events 
acquired  the  right  to  be  so  no  longer,  The  ape-like  skull 
of  the  Stone  age  has  been  replaced  by  the  skull  of  the  poet, 
the  philosopher  and  the  statesman.  Let  us  be  satisfied; 
Christ  has  come.  I  only  wish  that  I  could  present  before 
your  eyes  as  a  worthy  close  to  our  train  of  thought  to-night 
a  picture  of  some  aboriginal  savage  of  the  Stone  age,  and 
then,  in  divine  contrast  to  its  humiliating  ugliness  and  base 
brutality,  a  copy  of  that  immortal  statue  of  the  highest 
type  of  man,  the  Christ  of  Dannecker.  I  see  you  love, 
like  the  old  Greeks  to  adorn  your  city  and  honour  your 
great  men  with  statues  :  why  have  you  not  indulged  your- 
selves in  the  joy  of  having  always  before  your  eyes  the 
wonder  of  the  age — the  greatest  statue  of  the  greatest 
Being  of  all  ages  ?  St  Petersburg  has  obtained  a  copy  of 
it  in  marble.  Why  should  Boston  be  behind  St  Peters- 
burg ?  It  is  worth  an  annual  pilgrimage  to  Stuttgard  to 
behold  it.  Such  majesty  !  such  tenderness  !  such  intellect 
and  wisdom  in  the  brow  and  face  !  Such  grace  and  beauty 
in  the  form  seen  through  the  flowing  robe  !  Of  more  than 
mortal  size,  it  seems  no  more  than  man  — no  less  than  all 
the  blessed  gospels  say  of  him  !  the  flower  of  the  long  de- 
velopment !  the  very  incarnation  of  the  Deity. 


LECTURE  V. 

ON   THE    UNITY   OF    MANKIND. 

We  are  now  to  consider  wliat  light  the  modern  sciences 
can  throw  upon  the  question  of  the  oneness  or  the  many- 
ness  of  mankind. 

It  has  been  common  to  use  with  great  looseness  of 
meaning  the  terms  race,  family,  species,  in  their  appHca- 
tion  to  mankind. 

The  '  race  of  man '  is  contrasted  with  the  animal  races 
and  the  race  of  angels  — the  word  race  being  the  English 
form  of  the  Latin  word  radix,  root,  and  implying  a  common 
origin  to  all  the  human  inhabitants  of  this  planet. 

The  '  human  species '  is  an  expression  even  more  common 
in  late  hterature  than  the  '  human  race,'  but  quite  as  in- 
definite. The  word  species  in  Latin  {specto,  spy,  &c.), 
like  the  word  speech  (sprecheri)  in  English,  has  reference 
to  the  expression  of  the  inner  nature  outwardly  upon  the 
face  and  form  so  that  it  can  be  understood  and  sympa- 
thized with. 

The  "^ human  family'  is  an  expression  merely  implying 
the  common  interests  of  mankind  as  against  the  forest 
and  the  flood,  wild  beasts  and  hostile  elements ;  while  it 
includes  the  ideas  of  possible  fraternity,  consanguinity, 
intermarriage,  and  fellowships  of  every  spiritual  grade. 
When  the  apostle  wrote  '  for  of  one  blood  he  hath  made 
all  the  dwellers  upon  earth  '  he  shared  the  indefinite  no- 
tions of  that  and  every  other  age,  and  expressed  his  Chris- 
tian philanthropy  in  the  usual  way,  quite  sufficient  for  his 
purpose. 

Our  inquiry  is  of  another  order.  Science  is  obliged  to 
restrict  words  to  one  meaning.  At  the  outset  of  a  mathe- 
matical discussion  the  value  of  x  is  unknown ;  but  at  the 
close  of  it  the  value  of  x  is  made  out  lo  be  some  one 


ON    THE    UNITY    OF    MANKIND.  95 

certain  quantity,  and  no  other.  We  have  aot  yet  made 
out  the  value  of  x  in  the  discussion  of  species.  We  still 
use  the  terms  race  and  family  in  a  loose  way.  We  talk  of 
the  various  races  of  mankind  — the  black  race,  the  white 
race,  the  yellow  race,  the  red  race.  We  even  subdivide 
these,  and  speak  of  four  or  five  black  races,  i.  e.  the  Caribs 
of  S.  Amei'ica,  the  blacks  of  Northern  Africa,  the  blacks  of 
Southern  Africa,  the  Negrito  race  of  the  Andaman  islands, 
and  the  Milanesians  of  the  Eastern  Archipelago.  Some- 
times our  subdivisions  become  small  and  numerous ;  e.  g. 
we  divide  the  white  race  into  the  Arian  and  Shemitic 
branches  ;  and  then  subdivide  the  Shemitic  branch  into 
the  Hebrew,  the  Arabic,  the  Coptic,  the  Phoenician,  and 
other  races.  Ethnologists,  therefore,  differ  in  their  classi- 
fication of  human  races  so  much,  that  the  number  ranges 
from  three  to  thirty.  The  questions  which  start  up  for 
their  consideration  are  questions  of  detail,  and  the  word 
race  has  in  common  ethnology  got  to  confining  itself  to 
these  details. 

But  it  carries  a  larger  significance ;  it  has  the  same 
scope  with  the  word  species,  with  this  difference :  viz.  that 
the  word  species  reminds  us  of  other  animals  beside  man 
and  excites  the  question  of  their  possible  consanguinity 
with  him  ;  while  the  word  race  excites  only  the  question 
of  one  man^s  relationship  to  another. 

My  lecture  this  evening  will  therefore  deal  with  these 
two  subjects :  race  and  species ;  or,  in  other  words,  with  the 
distinctions  of  human  races,  and  their  origins.  I  state  it 
in  this  form,  so  as  to  get  rid  of  the  transcendental  discus- 
sion of  species  pier  se,  which  would  absorb  the  whole  even- 
ing and  lead  us  to  no  results  after  all.  And  I  take  them 
in  this  reversed  order  of  time  because  I  do  not  believe  in 
a  priori  science.  We  must  take  existing  facts  first  and 
argue  back  from  them«to  what  has  been  fact  in  times  past. 

But  before  investigating  the  facts  of  the  case,  I  must 
state  the  condition  of  our  apparatus  for  the  investigation. 
Taking  the  sciences  in  their  order :  what  means  do  they 
afford  us  for  determining  the  unity  of  the  human  race  ? 

From  the  group  of  the  mathematical  sciences  we  get  our 
calculations  of  the  increase  of  human  population ;  our 
knowledge  of  the  relations  estabhshed  between  physical 
geography  and  human  migrations  ;  and  between  climate 


96  ON    THE    UNITY  [lECT. 

and  character.  We  get  also  certain  wonderful  glimpses 
into  the  mystery  of  change  of  organic  form,  which,  whether 
retained  by  the  Creator  in  his  own  hand,  or  deposited  by 
him  as  an  efficient  cause  in  nature,  is  in  any  view  you 
may  take  of  it  the  great  central  subject  of  this  investiga- 
tion. 

From  the  group  of  the  inorganic  sciences  we  receive  the 
discussion  of  facts  only  hinted  at  in  the  last  lecture ;  the 
fossil  remains  of  primeval  men  and  of  contemporaneous 
animals,  and,  moreover,  our  ideas  of  time. 

From  the  organic  sciences  we  get  our  laws  of  species- 
variation  ;  laws  which  rule  over  both  kingdoms^  the  veget- 
able and  the  animal,  and  therefore  over  man.  Compara- 
tive anatomy,  describing  its  collections,  defines  for  us  the 
limits  of  similarity  and  dissimilarity  between  the  fossil 
species  and  those  now  existing;  between  the  monkey 
tribes  and  the  tribes  of  mankind  ;  between  the  skulls  found 
in  the  bone-caverns,  and  the  skulls  of  Casper  Hauser  and 
Daniel  Webster ;  between  the  skeleton  and  the  skin  of 
Hottentots  and  of  Englishmen. 

From  the  historical  sciences,  of  which  Ethnology  is  one, 
we  get  those  facts  which,  on  the  one  hand,  teach  the  per- 
manence of  those  great  distinctions  upon  which  our  largest 
classification  of  human  races  is  founded ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  teach  those  easy  and  rapid  modifications  of  the  human 
form  and  features,  through  civilization  or  decivilization, 
which  may  well  make  us  liberal  in  our  judgments  both 
towards  those  who  insist  upon  one  Adam  from  whom  all 
blacks  and  whites,  yellow  men  and  red  men  have  descended, 
and  also  towards  those  who  insist  upon  the  generation  of 
man  from  the  ape.  Herewith  come  in  those  volumes  of 
archeeological  suggestions  ;  pictures  of  men  and  dogs  upon 
the  tombs  of  the  Pharaohs ;  images  of  ancient  Hindu  and 
Chinese  deities ;  skeletons  of  Greeks  and  Romans,  Gauls 
and  Finns  buried  in  tombs  and  tumuli  of  every  age  back 
through  the  Modern,  the  Ii-on,  the  Bronze,  and  the  Stone 
periods.  Surely  we  ought  to  be  able  to  come  to  some  con- 
clusion, however  modestly,  as  to  whether  mankind  is  and 
has  always  been  of  one  race  ;  and  whether  there  are  signs 
of  a  transition  from  degraded  ape-like  forms  up  to  the 
noblest  figure  of  a  man.  But  the  list  of  our  opportunities 
is  not  yet  complete. 


v.]  OF    MANKIND.  97 

From  the  social  sciences  we  get  statistics,  not  only  of 
the  present,  but  of  the  past  conditions  of  hnman  life ;  we 
see  how  the  aris  and  arms  of  men  have  come  into  existence 
and  been  improved,  increased,  and  perfected,  in  striking 
parallelism  with  human  form  and  human  intellect ;  part  of 
that  development  of  the  idea  of  man,  which  itself  forms 
but  a  part  of  a  still  grander  development  of  the  idea  of 
universal  nature.  The  study  of  ancient  commerce  reflects 
light  upon  the  theory  of  migrations,  and  helps  to  distin- 
guish the  characteristics  of  races.  The  study  of  ancient 
war  is,  in  fact,  the  tracing  of  migrations  as  they  became 
accomplished  facts,  influencing  mixtures  of  races,  and  ex- 
plaining the  reappearance  of  Mongol  faces  in  Western 
Pennsylvania.  By  the  study  of  ancient  law  (as  the  mag- 
nificent book  of  Maine,  just  published,  proves)  we  get 
laws  of  natural  selection,  which  even  Darwin  hardly 
dreamed  of;  by  which  races  were  subdivided,  and  new 
forms  contracted  for,  to  become  permanent  in  after  times. 

Lastly,  from  the  intellect nal  sciences,  we  learu  :  1.  how 
to  distinguish  the  races  of  mankind  through  language, 
and  to  track  them  in  their  later  marchings  and  counter- 
marchings  across  the  continents  and  seas;  2.  how  to  dis- 
tinguish races  by  their  fine  arts,  their  ethics,  their  wor- 
ships ;  bat  above  all,  3.  we  get  some  clear  notion  of  man^s 
relation  to  the  brute,  and  are  thus  enabled  to  introduce 
into  the  purely  materialistic  discussion  of  the  development 
theory,  based  on  fossils  and  on  comparative  anatomy, 
those  higher  considerations  which  naturally  and  properly 
must  have  most  weight  with  sensible,  religious.  Christian 
people. 

The  last  condition  of  mankind,  namely,  that  in  which 
we  see  it  now  existing,  resembles  the  last  condition  of  the 
rock-crust  of  the  earth,  namely,  that  in  which  we  see  it 
constituting  the  deltas  and  the  valley-terraces  of  existing 
rivers.  What  is  this  condition  ?  It  is  one  of  disintegra- 
tion, confusion,  intermixture.  Examine  a  handful  of  the 
gravel  which  comes  in  daily  from  Roxbury  to  be  dumped 
into  the  Back  Bay,  and  say  whnt  are  its  constituent  ele- 
ments ?  and  where  they  oi'iginated  ?  Pebbles  of  quartz, 
of  porphyry,  of  micaslate,  of  gneiss,  of  syenite,  white, 
black,  red,  green,  and  blue  are  there  ;  tell  me  their  several 
ages,  their  ancient  starting-points,  the  course  of  the  ice- 

7 


'98  ON   THE    UNITY  [lECT. 

berg,  the  glacier,  or  the  cuirent  whicli  brought  them  to 
the  quarry.  The  data  exist.  Guyot  has  traced  the  ancient 
moraines  of  Switzerland  back  to  the  existing  glaciers,  and 
thus  to  their  mother  peaks  among  the  Alps.  Nature 
writes  out  in  full  all  her  family  trees.  With  care  you  can 
interpret  them  to  a  certainty.  A  labourer  collecting 
cobble-stones  at  the  falls  of  the  Delaware  near  Trenton 
for  the  pavements  of  Philadelphia  may  wonder  how  this  or 
that  one  can  happen  to  differ  so  widely  from  those  about  it. 
A^anuxem,  or  Conrad,  or  James  Hall  would  tell  him  by 
certain  marks  upon  it  that  it  was  a  piece  of  coral  ;  that  it 
grew  originally  in  what  is  now  the  valley  of  the  Mohawk ; 
that  ice  and  rain  had  carried  it  down  the  whole  course  of 
the  river  Delaware  from  Cooperstown  to  tide ;  and  that 
the  pebbles,  among  which  it  lies  are  red  sand-stones  of  a 
later  age  from  Newtown,  quartzites  of  an  older  age  from 
Easton,  blue  slates  from  the  Water  Gap,  iron-stones  from 
Milford,  and  copper- slates  from  Port  Deposit. 

Modern  cities  are  the  gravel-banks  of  humanity.  Dis- 
integrated races  of  mankind  are  drifted  into  them.  Of  the 
600,000  inhabitants  of  Philadelphia,  a  rude  one-tenth  have 
been  brought  to  it  on  those  pitiless  ice-bergs,  the  slave- 
ships,  from  the  southern  continent  of  the  old  world  and 
represent  all  the  principal  subdivisions  of  the  hlach  races. 
A  second  tenth  has  been  supplied  by  Suabia,  Switzerland, 
Bohemia,  Moravia,  Austria,  Hungary,  and  other  native 
lands  of  the  Sclavonic  race.  A  third  tenth  has  come  from 
Northern  Germany  and  Scandinavia,  and  represents  the 
Teutonic  race,  in  its  two  branches.  A  fourth  and  fifth  are 
Gelts,  from  Ireland  and  Wales,  the  west  of  Scotland  and 
the  north  and  west  of  Fi-ance,  mixed  in  with  Celt  Iberians 
of  Spain  and  Italy.  The  rest  are  lowland  Scotch  and 
English,  a  mongrel  people  made  up  of  Celtic  Britons,  and 
1'eutonic  Franks  and  Saxons,  Scandinaviau  Normans  with 
Slavic,  Finnish,  Tartar  and  Shemitic  streaks  of  blood. 
The  Shemitic  race  is  represented  by  thousands  of  Jews. 
And  on  the  wharves  are  seen  Cooleys  fi-om  India  and 
China,  Malays  from  Singapore,  and  Canakas  from  Hawaii. 

Two  opposing  laws  work  mightily  and  incessantly  over 
the  ethnology  of  such  a  place.  One  is  the  law  of  viixture, 
tending  to  obliterate  all  distinctions  of  race  and  to  produce 
.new  types  ;  the  other  is  the  law  of  segregation,  tending  to 


v.]  OF    MANKIND.  G^" 

draw  the  individuals  of  each  stock  together  and  to  repro- 
duce those  original  distinctions. 

Under  the  first  law,  and  by  the  intermarriage  of  the 
black  race  with  the  whites^  we  have  mulattoes  of  every 
grade  of  colour,  stature,  and  facial  angle.  Whether  an 
improvement  be  the  consequence  men  are  not  yet  agreed. 
The  circumstances  have  not  yet  been  favourable  for  settling 
that  question,  nor  will  be  until  black  and  white  can  mix 
on  terms  of  reasonable  equality,  each  bringing  to  the 
other  its  own  peculiar  characteristics  in  full  and  free  de- 
velopment. With  regard  to  the  races  not  so  widely  separ- 
ated by  nature  or  by  circumstances  improvement  by  in- 
termixture is  an  established  truth.  In  middle  Pennsylvania 
and  Virginia  for  example,  wherever  intermarriage  has 
taken  place  between  North- Irish  presbyterian  Saxons  and 
the  families  of  the  old  Swope  and  Hessian  emigrants,  a 
magnificent  mongrel  breed  of  people  fills  the  valleys  of  the 
Susquehanna,  Juniata,  and  Potomac,  with  frames  of  steel 
and  brains  of  flame,  the  stuS"  of  which  heroes,  poets  and 
philosophers  are  made.  No  one  can  avoid  observing  the 
rapid  improvement  of  the  Celtic  race  in  the  United  States 
wherever  it  is  free  to  cross  itself  with  Teutonic  blood. 
Let  all  due  weight  be  given  to  the  other  elements  of  pro- 
gress, superior  food,  superior  labour,  superior  education, 
still  we  cannot  fail  to  recognize  the  crossing  of  the  breeds 
as  the  chief  hope  of  the  nation.  Civilization  is  the  flower 
of  migration.  Every  great  history  has  sprung  from  some 
barbaric  invasion.  A  new  humanity  follows  every  deluge. 
Arts  and  learnings  are  the  electric  lights  about  the  wire- 
points  where  two  races  approximate.  One  kind  of  blood 
is  metal  to  the  acid  of  another :  mix  them  in  generous 
proportions  and  you  have  Harems  calorimeter  on  a  cosmical 
scale;  you  can  burn  up  with  it  the  past  or  electrotype 
with  it  the  future.  When  the  eS"ervescence  ceases  the 
Creator  walks  away ;  the  apparatus  is  useless  until  it  is 
charged  anew. 

By  the  law  of  segregation,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Ger- 
mans of  Philadelphia  have  drawn  ofi"  into  the  north- 
eastern quarter  of  the  city,  and  made  a  Frankfort-on-the- 
Maine  of  it.  The  blacks  have  appropriated  the  southern 
wards  and  made  a  Timbuctoo  of  them.  The  Irish  cluster 
about  their   churches,  the  Jews   about  their  synagogues^ 


100  ON    THE    UNITY  [lECT, 

without  need  of  legislative  enactments.  The  west  end  of 
one  of  the  finest  streets  in  Cincinnati  is  formed  by  rovvs  of 
palaces,  built  since  the  middle  of  the  war,  and  all  inhabited 
by  Jews.  The  principal  Quaker  families  of  Philadelphia 
still  reside  in  Arch-street — a  beautiful  meeting-house  a 
mile  long  and  so  monotonous  that  you  might  turn  it  end 
for  end,  or  upside  down,  and  nobody  should  perceive  the 
difference. 

But  when  groups  of  tourmaline  or  spinel  segregate  in 
the  old  or  metamorphic  rocks  they  are  signs  of  age  or 
long  stagnation.  A  city  with  established  quarters  of  dis- 
tinct nationalities  cannot  improve  at  the  same  rate  with  a 
city  like  Chicago  or  St  Louis  where  confusion  of  races 
pervades  the  place.  Arch-street  was  long  an  iron  bar 
between  its  legs  to  the  city  of  William  Penn.  The  pro- 
hibitory tariff  which  the  south  so  long  laid  against  the  im- 
portation of  Yankee  blood  was  that  which  made  Charles 
Sumner^s  speech  so  dreadfully  true.  The  Indian  tribes  of 
North  America  fossilized  themselves  by  isolation  ;  and  now 
they  perish  because  they  cannot  marry  into  a  stronger 
family.  In  the  earlier  ages  of  mankind  this  law  of  segre- 
gation ruled  despotically.  And  why  ?  Because  it  is  the 
law  which  guards  the  individual  life,  without  regard  to  the 
improvement  of  the  race.  That  other  law  of  disintegra- 
tion and  intermixture  patronizes  the  improvement  of  the 
race  and  disregards  the  life  of  the  individual.  What  do 
the  forces  of  civilization  care  for  the  happiness  or  misery 
of  the  individual  coal-miner  that  furnishes  fuel  for  its 
steam-engine,  or  the  sailor  who  brings  it  over  the  sea,  or 
the  engine-driver  who  is  smashed  on  the  experimental  trip, 
or  the  factory  girl,  or  the  telescopic-lens  grinder,  or  the 
Lord  Premier  who  commits  suicide,  or  the  First  Consul 
who  eats  his  broken  heart  at  St  Helena  ?  Nothing. 
Christianity,  indeed,  sympathizes  with  each  and  at  the 
same  time  with  all,  and  thus  observes  both  laws,  and  em- 
ploys them  both  for  the  happiness  of  the  individual  and 
for  the  progress  of  the  race.  But  Christianity  is  a  recent 
device  of  the  Deity.  Our  theme  antedates  it  a  million 
years,  if  Desnoyer^s  tertiary  bones  were  really  scratched 
and  split  by  the  hands  of  men. 

Questions  to-night  will  come  up  such  as  these  :  Of  what 
race   of    men   are  Desnoyer's    tertiary   human   bones    the 


v.]  OF   MANKIND.  lUl 

vestiges  ?  In  what  street  of  Paris  or  Boston  will  you  tiud 
their  present  representatives  ?  Was  it  that  primeval  race 
which  afterwards  fashioned  the  flint  implements  buried  in 
the  post-tertiary  diluvium  of  Abbeville  ;  and  those  found 
in  the  bone-caverns  of  Belgium?  Was  it  the  race  whose 
skeletons  lie  mouldering  in  the  tumuli  of  the  Stone  period 
here  or  there  ?  Is  it  one  of  the  great  existing  races  of 
the  present  day  ?  How  many  existing  races  really  are 
there  ?  How  can  we  distinguish  them  apart  now  that  they 
are  so  intermixed  ?  And  if  we  can  distinguish  them  apart, 
can  we  also  arrange  them  in  any  hierarchy  or  natural  order 
of  mutual  excellence  ?  Are  any  of  them  essentially  and 
incurably  bestial  ?  Can  there  be  established  any  rational 
connection  between  the  lowest  races  of  mankind  existinof 
now  and  the  oldest  skulls  and  skeletons  ?  Can  we  in  any 
way  make  these  an  intermediate  link  between  the  Christian 
gentleman  and  the  abominable  chimpanzee  ? 

These  questions  have  been  discussed  by  many  writers, 
and  been  taken  up  in  almost  every  order.  Each  writer  has 
given  greater  prominence  to  one  or  other  of  them  accord- 
ing to  the  special  nature  of  his  studies.  Perhaps  the  clear- 
est statement  of  them  has  been  made  by  Carl  Vogt,  Pro- 
fessor of  Comparative  Anatomy  in  the  Academy  at  Geneva, 
in  a  series  of  lectures  delivered  at  Neuenburg  in  one  of  the 
valleys  of  the  Swiss  Jura  and  published  in  two  volumes  at 
Giessen,  in  186  4-.  His  collection  of  facts  down  to  the 
most'  recent  discoveries  of  last  year  is  comprehensive. 
His  searching  criticism  of  the  various  and  opposite 
opinions  held  still  by  men  of  science  illustrate  the  whole 
subject.  His  reputation  as  an  anatomist  is  of  the  highest 
rank.  His  independeuce  is  as  a-ilmirable  as  his  scientific 
method  is  clear  and  straightforward.  Whether  his  classi- 
fication of  the  human  races  will  fare  better  than  those  of 
his  predecessors  or  not,  the  strong  ground  of  his  general 
conclusions,  I  think,  cannot  be  shaken.  They  are  not  in 
fact  his  conclusions  ;  they  are  the  provisional  sentiments 
of  a  large  number  of  the  leaders  of  science  for  the 
moment  produced  by  the  sum  total  of  our  information  up 
to  date,  and  subject  of  course  to  constitutional  amendment 
according  to  law.  As  such  I  offer  them  for  your  con- 
sideration this  evening. 

I  stated  in  general  terms  in  my  last  lecture  that  no  dif- 


102  <^N    THE    UNITY  [lECT. 

ference  could  be  made  out  between  man  and  the  monkey 
as  to  the  ground-plan  of  their  forms.  Their  hands  are 
planned  like  human  hands,  their  feet  like  human  feet,  their 
brains  like  human  brains,  their  jaws  and  teeth  like  human 
jaws  and  teeth,  and  so  of  all  other  parts  of  their  organiza- 
tion. 

The  same,  of  course,  can  be  asserted  respecting  the  dif- 
ferent races  of  men  ;  they  are  all  built  upon  one  plan.    K 
this  makes   them    all   of  one  race,    then  it   becomes  also 
necessary  to  assert  that  men  and  monkeys  are  of  one  race 
because  they  are  built  upon  a  common  plan. 

The  differences  which  do  exist,  both  between  men  and 
monkeys  and  between  one  race  of  men  and  another,  as 
well  as  between  one  race  of  monkeys  and  another,  are 
differences  in  the  development  of  this  ground-'plan  common 
to  all.  Take  the  idea  of  the  skull  for  an  instance  :  it  may 
be  more  ape-like  or  more  man-like ;  it  may  be  brachy- 
cephalic,  i.  e.  short  for  its  width,  or  dolichocephalic,  i.  e. 
long  for  its  width ;  it  may  have  a  low,  retreating  fore- 
head, or  a  high,  erect  forehead ;  it  may  show  a  perfectly 
symmetrical  curve  when  seen  sidewise  or  endwise,  or  it 
may  be  lumpy  and  knobby  like  a  laurel  root ;  it  may  be 
high  and  pointed ;  or  immensely  developed  behind  the 
ears ;  or  all  brought  forwards  over  the  eyes ;  or  bulging 
over  the  ears  sideways ;  it  may  be  marked  by  ridges  and 
crests,  fore  and  aft  and  from  side  to  side.  All  these  differ- 
ences you  are  accustomed  to  meet  in  your  daily  walks ;  and 
these  same  kinds  of  differences  you  would  see  if  you  ex- 
tended your  walks  to  the  forests  of  the  tropics.  The  sub- 
ject is  one  of  degrees,  or  rather  one  of  details.  Just  as, 
to  use  one  of  Vogt's  illustrations,  when  an  architect  is 
showing  his  scholars  the  essential  unity  of  plan  which  re- 
sides in  all  Gothic  domes  he  explains  the  various  ways  in 
which  the  idea  of  this  plan  is  unfolded  in  the  different 
cathedrals  of  Europe. 

And  so  of  all  other  parts  of  the  human  organism  as  of 
all  other  members  of  the  Gothic  edifice.  We  cannot  take 
one  part  as  our  criterion  ;  we  must  take  the  whole  animal, 
the  whole  man.  The  shape  of  the  skull  is  very  important, 
because  very  changeable,  and  because  skulls  are  attainable 
when  no  other  vestige  of  man  remains  to  be  examined. 
But  the   shape  of  the  limbs,  the  colour  of  the   skin   and 


v.]  OP    MANKIND.  103 

eyes,  the  growth  of  the  hair — in  a  word,  the  entire  aspect 
of  the  person  must,  in  the  end,  decide  for  us  his  affinities, 
and  enable  us  to  fix  those  Hmits  of  variation  which  con- 
stitute a  race.  A.ny  other  method  of  classification  would 
be  empirical  and  not  natural.  * 

To  show  you  how  careful  we  must  be  to  take  every  part 
of  the  phenomenon  into  consideration,  and  to  give  you  an 
additional  illustration  of  the  delicacy  and  shrewdness  of 
modern  methods  of  investigation^  I  will  adduce  a  couple  of 
facts  connected  with  the  measurement  of  human  skulls. 
It  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  small  skulls  contain 
feeble  brains,  nor  that  small  brains  in  one  century  may  not 
become  larger  in  another  century. 

The  action  of  the  brain  seems  dependent  upon  its  folded 
surface.  Wagner  has  shown  by  the  following  table  that 
women^s  brains  weigh  less  than  men's,  but  that  their  sur- 
faces when  unfolded  and  spread  out  equal  or  exceed  those 
of  men  : — 

Number. 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11 
12. 
Man,       1499  gramms  weight  and  2489  of  surface. 
Woman,  1254  „  „  2498  of  surface. 

It  is  possible  thus  to  explain  the  small  head  and  womanly 
intellectuality  of  the  Hindu  race.* 

Another  such  fact  is  one  that  Brocaf  discovered  by  his 
measurement  of  skulls  obtained  from  two  Parisian  grave- 
yards as  old  or  older  than  the  time  of  Philip  Augustus,  i.  e. 
of  the  twelfth  century.     It  goes  to  show  that  the  average 

•  Vogt,  vol.  i.  p.  137.  t   Ibid.  pp.  106,  108. 


Weight  in 

Convex  surface  in 

r. 

gramms. 

IGClmm  of  great  squares. 

(Dirichlet) 

1520 

2553 

(Fuchs) 

1499 

2489 

(Gauss) 

1492 

2419 

(Hermann) 

1358 

2406 

Man 

1340 

2451 

}} 

1330 

2309 

}} 

1273 

2117 

Woman 

1254 

2498 

(Hausmann) 

1226 

3065 

Woman 

1223 

2272 

yt 

1185 

2300 

Mikrocephalus 

!  (idiot)  300 

896 

104  ON    THE    UNITY  [lEcT. 

size  of  the  skull  of  the  same  race  may  increase  in  the 
course  of  time.  115  of  these  skulls  from  one  graveyard 
gave  the  mean  size  of  1461.53  cubic  centimetres;  117 
skulls  from  another  graveyard  gave  1409.31  cubic  centi- 
metres; while  that  of  125  skulls  of  paupers^  buried  in  a 
modern  Parisian  cemetery  (1788 — 1824)  in  spite  of  the 
debasing  influences  of  poverty    measured  1484.23. 

Morlot  in  comparing  the  shape  and  size  of  a  multitude 
of  ancient  Helvetian  skulls  which  he  examined,  with  the 
skulls  of  their  descendants  the  Genevese  of  the  present 
day,  comes  to  the  same  conclusion  and  ascribes  the  im- 
provement to  the  influence  of  Christianity. 

Great  discussion  has  been  had  over  this  matter  of  change 
in  the  form  of  the  human  skull,  on  the  one  side  under  the 
influence  of  favourable  circumstances,  and  of  unfavourable 
circumstances  on  the  other.  The  factitious  reputation 
which  the  English  Pritchard  acquired  came  from  his 
assiduous  collection  and  collation  of  supposed  examples  of 
the  degeneracy  of  people  through  misfortune,  and  of  the 
improvement  of  other  people  through  good  fortune.  His 
instances  of  the  Turks,  of  the  Jews,  of  the  Irish  are  well 
known.  He  thought  that  facts  warranted  him  in  assert- 
ing; that  the  bow-lee^o-ed  and  savao-e-featured  horsemen  of 
Independent  Tartary  had  become  in  two  or  three  centuries 
the  straight-legged  handsome  aristocrats  of  Constanti- 
nople. That  the  white  Jews  of  Palestine  had  become  under 
an  Indian  sky  the  black  Jews  of  Madras.  That  the  tall, 
stout,  clever  Irish  of  Meath,  when  driven  by  the  English 
from  their  farms  to  huddle  half- starved  in  mud-huts  in  the 
south-west  corner  of  the  Green  Isle,  became  in  a  few 
generations  the  ugly,  low-browed,  meagre-limbed,  pot- 
bellied, brutal  creatures  whom  the  famine  drove  in  crowds 
to  this  country  and  whose  well-fed  children  now  constitute 
a  class  of  our  society  not  at  all  inferior  to  any  other  as  far 
as  physical  and  mental  development  is  concerned. 

This  story  of  the  Irish  has  been  again  taken  up  by  one 
of  the  most  exact  ethnologists  of  our  own  da}',  M.  Quatre- 
fages  of  Paris.     I  will  give  it  in  his  own  words  : — 

'  When  the  British  suppressed  the  Irish  rebellions  of 
1649  and  1689,  great  crowds  of  native  Irish  were  driven 
out  from  Armagh  and  the  south  of  county  Down,  in  one  di- 
rection, into   the  mountains  between  Flews  and  the  sea, 


v.]  OF    MANKIND.  105 

and  in  the  otlier,  into  Leitrim,  Sligo,  and  Mayo.  From 
tliat  time  on,  these  people  suffered  the  evil  influence  of 
hunger  and  ignorance,  those  two  great  spoilers  of  man- 
kind. Their  descendants  may  be  easily  distinguisfied  at. 
the  present  day  from  their  relatives  left  in  Meath  in  good 
estate.  They  are  marked  by  open,  protruding  mouths, 
projecting  teeth,  and  fletschendern  gums,  high  cheek- 
bones, suppressed  noses,  and  bai-barous  foreheads.  In 
Sligo  and  northerc  Mayo,  two  centuries  of  wretchedness 
have  stamped  themselves  upon  the  whole  bodily  constitu- 
tion, within  and  without,  furnishing  us  with  an  example  of 
human  degeneration  through  known  causes,  so  instructive 
for  the  future,  as  to  compensate  for  the  misery  of  the  past. 
Their  mean  height  is  about  5  ft  2  inches ;  they  are  thick- 
bellied,  crook-legged,  like  mis-begotten  children  ;  clad  in 
rags  they  go  about,  the  ghosts  of  a  once  full-sized,  well- 
bodied,  and  courageous  people.  In  other  quartei'S  of  the 
island  where  this  same  Irish  race  has  suffered  no  such 
lamentable  miseries,  it  furnishes  the  fairest  examples  of 
human  strength  and  beauty,  not  only  physical  but  intel- 
lectual also.  Yet  this  account,  which  makes  one's  hair 
bristle  with  horror,  is  sufficient  to  show  how  easily  it  can 
be  lowered  to  a  level  with,  and  be  made  to  show  all  the 
characteristics  of,  the  lowest  negro  races,  the  most  aban- 
doned Australian  tribes.' 

I  have  selected  from  a  great  many  o'thers  and  given  you 
in  full  this  description  of  a  case,  which  has  made  perhaps 
the  profoundest  impression  upon  the  imagination  of  eth- 
nologists, because  it  will  not  only  make  the  question  before 
us  plain  but  will  show  how  differently  different  investi- 
gators conclude  their  inferences  from  the  same  facts. 

Pritchard,  and  his  numerous  old-school  followers,  see  in 
this  history  only  a  fine  example  of  man's  susceptibility  to 
chauge,  and  they  prove  by  it  and  other  like  examples  that 
satiety  and  hunger,  heat  and  cold,  field-life  and  forest-life, 
mountain-air  and  sea-air  have  been  ample  means  for 
changing  the  descendants  of  the  first  pair,  Adam  and  Eve, 
or  of  the  second  pair,  Noah  and  Anna,  into  all  the  black, 
white,  yellow,  and  red  descriptions  of  mankind  which  now 
inhabit  the  globe.  But  in  order  to  maintain  this  theory 
they  are  obliged  to  ignore  or  explain  away  a  multitude 
of  adverse  facts    going  to  show  that  this  capacity  of  man 


lOG  ON    THE    UNITY  [lECT. 

for  change  is  so  limited  that  any  race  subjected  to  ad- 
versity beyond  a  certain  point  not  only  degenerates  but 
perishes  entirely,  like  any  other  kind  of  animal. 

This  opposite  view  has  been  taken  up  with  the  same  ex- 
cessive advocacy  and  want  of  logical  balance  by  Dr  Knox 
and  his  school,  who  go  to  the  extent  of  maintaining  that 
no  migration  is  possible ;  that  the  number  of  original 
human  races  is  very  great ;  that  each  of  them  was  created 
to  occupy  a  certain  definite  area  and  can  occupy  no  other ; 
that  any  translation  of  it  from  that  area  to  another  is 
necessarily  fatal ;  and  that  the  degeneration  of  the  Irish 
vagabonds  from  Meath  was  as  certain  a  premonition  of 
extinction  as  the  degeneration  of  the  European  emigrants 
to  these  United  States  must  end  in  the  extinction  of  our 
race,  unless  it  be  enabled  to  drag  out  a  Hngering  existence 
here  by  large  and  constant  accessions  of  fresh  hfe  from 
Europe. 

Such  speculations  are  not  scientific.  We  call  Pritchard 
an  old  fogy ;  we  call  Knox  a  crazy  fellow.  We  must  not 
only  have  alleged  facts,  we  must  have  actual  facts,  sifted, 
analyzed,  weighed,  and  measured,  before  we  can  begin  to 
see  our  way  through  such  a  world  of  mystery  as  is  this 
question  of  races.  This  sifting  of  facts  is  what  character- 
izes the  ethnology  of  the  last  few  years. 

You  will  ask,  what  opinion  does  Quatrefages  entertain 
of  the  case  which  he  cites  so  eloquently,  and  as  if  he  fully 
coincided  with  Pritchard^s  cherished  sentiments  ?  Be  not 
surprised  when  I  tell  you  that  he  doubts  the  facts  them- 
selves. He  quietly  asks  if  it  be  not  possible  that  the  two 
classes  of  Irish  peasantry  thus  contrasted,  the  one  de- 
graded to  a  level  with  Australians,  the  other  allied  to  the 
most  favoured  Caucasians,  ever  really  had  anything  to  do 
with  each  other.  '  No,^  says  he,  '  the  Irishman  of  Meath 
alone  represents  the  old  stock,  he  has  remained  at  home, 
he  has  remained  unaltered.  The  Irishman  of  Flews,  on 
the  contrary,  placed  in  other  circumstances,  has  changed 
himself  and  formed  a  new  race  out  of  the  old  one,  in  har- 
mony with  its  unhappy  surroundings.  There  are  therefore, 
now  two  races  in  these  neighbouring  counties.^ 

And  what  has  Vogt,  again,  to  say  to  this  ?  Vogt  smiles 
at  Quatrefages'  ingenious,  subterfuge.  Supposing  the 
details  of  the  Irish  story  to  be  true,  how  does  it  affect  the 


v.]  OF   MANKIND.  107 

question  of  the  radical  distinction  between  the  skull  of  a 
white  Celt  and  the  skull  of  an  Australian  negro  ?  Who 
has  examined  the  skulls  of  these  degraded  Irishmen  of 
Flews,  and  compared  them  in  the  hght  of  the  latest  science 
with  the  skulls  of  the  Irishmen  of  Meath  their  alleged 
cousins  on  the  one  side  to  make  out  the  differences,  and 
with  the  skulls  of  Australians  on  the  other  side  to  make 
out  the  resemblance  ?  Has  Pritchard  ?  Has  Quatrefages  ? 
Has  Broca  ?  Has  Morton  or  Bachman  ?  Has  Scherzer  and 
Schwarz  ?  Has  Busk,  or  Camper,  or  Welcker,  or  Von 
Baer,  or  Virchow,  or  Lucae,  or  Gratiolet,  or  Huschke,  or 
Aiken  Meigs,  or  anybody  ?  Nobody  !  Then  what  does  our 
actual  knowledge  about  it  amount  to  after  all  ?  To  nothing. 
There  being  no  competent  witnesses  the  case  is  ruled  out 
of  court. 

We  might  spend  much  time  in  showing  how  all  the  old 
and  well-established  points  of  controversy  are  broken  off 
in  pretty  much  the  same  manner  by  want  of  proper  pre- 
liminary criticism.  In  the  Turkish  case,  for  instance : 
who  knows  how  much  of  the  old  Turkoman  element  still 
lingers  at  Constantinople  ?  And  where  did  the  Turks 
obtain  mothers  for  their  children  but  from  the  population 
of  the  empire  which  they  spent  more  than  one  lifetime  in 
overthrowing ;  to  say  nothing  about  the  mountain  beauties 
of  the  Caucasus. 

In  the  case  of  the  black  Jews  of  India :  who  does  not 
know  that  the  black  Jews  of  Abyssinia  boast  that  they  are 
the  descendants,  not  of  the  patriarchs,  but  of  the  Queen 
of  Sheba  ?  Their  Judaism  is  therefore  a  superstition  over- 
laid upon  their  blood,  and  cannot  be  adduced  in  proof 
that  their  Israelitish  blood  has  ever  changed  even  by  the 
thousandth  part  of  an  atom  of  iron. 

Take  the  case  of  the  negroes  in  America,  of  which  Lyell, 
and  Reiset,  and  Reclus  have  written  so  glibly;  and  who 
knows  anything  with  certainty  about  it  ?  A  land  indeed 
of  darkness  and  of  the  valley  of  death.  We  must  wait 
until  the  negroes  take  up  the  question  themselves ;  until 
a  truth-telling  census  gives  us  facts;  until  a  thorough 
and  searching  discrimination  has  been  exercised.  Men 
pretend  to  say  that  the  negro  race  has  been  marvellously 
modified  by  mere  change  of  habitat,  by  new  climates,  soils 
and  foods ;   or  as  they  are  sometimes  inclined  to  fancy,  by 


103  ON    THE    UNITY  [i.ECT. 

mysterious  or,  at  least,  unknown  agencies.  Reclus  asserts 
his  positive  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  as  a  race  the 
negroes  have  advanced  one-fourth  way  towards  the  form 
and  appearance  of  the  whites.  Reiset  opines  that  the 
])ure-blooded  Africans  of  the  Antilles  retain  their  native 
character,  only  weakened.  Some  writers  confidently  insist 
that  the  negro  skin  is  not  so  black,  his  nose  not  so  small, 
his  forehead  higher,  his  lips  thinner  than  they  used  to  be. 
Even  if  it  were  possible  to  discover  and  prove  all  this  to 
be  true  what  would  it  signify  when  we  consider  the  con- 
sistent and  universal  profligacy  of  the  whites  who  have 
lived  among  them  and  have  been  their  absolute  masters ; 
when  we  consider  the  immense  variety  of  thick  and  thin 
lipped,  high  and  low  browed,  large  and  small  nosed  tribes 
in  Africa  from  which  the  dreadful  sum  of  all  that  evil  was 
made  up  ;  and  lastly,  when  we  consider  the  operation  of 
the  internal  slave  trade,  that  Virginian  pudding-stick 
stirred  by  the  hand  of  Mammon  for  ever  mixing  up  these 
various  original  and  derived  ingredients  together,  to  pro- 
duce a  chaos  of  results  before  which  any  man,  were  he 
not  a  Charleston  clergyman  or  a  foreign  tourist,  would 
stand  awe- struck  and  silent. 

Lastly,  take  our  own  Yankee  case.  Listen,  if  you  can 
without  indulging  in  a  hearty  laugh,  to  the  following  de- 
scription by  Pruner  Bey  of  the  results  of  European  emi- 
gration to  America.  '  Already,  after  the  second  genera- 
tion,' says  this  shrewd  observer,  '  the  Yankee  shows  the 
features  of  the  Indian  type.  Later  still,  his  lymphatic 
system  becomes  reduced  to  the  minimum  of  its  normal  de- 
velopment. The  skin  grows  dry  as  leather ;  the  warmth 
of  the  complexion  and  the  ruddiness  of  the  cheeks  are 
lost — exchanged,  in  the  man,  for  a  clayey  tint;  in  the 
woman,  for  a  sickly  paleness.  The  head  grows  smaller, 
round  or  even  pointed,  and  covers  itself  with  straight, 
dark  hair;  the  neck  elongates,  and  one  can  see  a  great 
development  of  muscle  in  the  cheek  and  jaw.  The  temples 
deepen ;  the  cheek-bones  grow  massive ;  the  eyes  sink 
into  deep  orbits  and  lie  close  together.  The  iris  is  dark  ; 
the  glance  grows  piercing  and  wild.  The  long  bones  be- 
come still  longer,  especially  those  of  the  upper  limbs,  so 
that  gloves  of  a  peculiar  shape,  with  very  long  fingers, 
are  manufactured  in  France  and  Eno^land  for  the  American 


v.]  OP   MANKIND.  WJ 

market.  The  inner  holes  of  these  bones  become  narrow  ; 
the  nails  grow  Hght,  long,  and  pointed ;  the  woman^s  pel- 
vis approximates  in  shape  to  that  of  the  man.'  '  And 
thus/  adds  Quatrefages,  '  the  Anglo-Saxon  type  in  America 
has  become  changed  and  a  new  white  race  has  sprung  out 
of  the  old  English  race  to  which  we  may  give  the  name  of 
Yankee  race/ 

Now  all  this  to  one  accustomed  to  see  the  beautiful 
women  of  New  England  and  the  fine-looking  men  of  the 
middle  States  is  sheer  nonsense.  Every  intelligent  citizen 
of  the  United  States  has  travelled  enough  to  know  that 
the  picture  which  Pruner  Bey  has  given  us  represents  no 
such  general  reality  as  to  be  of  the  least  ethnological  im- 
portance. It  is  a  picture  of  individual  heads,  faces^  and 
forms  which  contrast  strongly  with  other  and  widely  dif- 
ferent heads,  faces,  and  forms  among  whom  they  live,  and 
moreover,  such  as  may  be  seen  all  over  Europe.  There  is 
not  even  a  well-marked  class  of  society  in  the  United 
States  to  answer  the  description.  And  as  for  a  Yankee 
race,  no  such  thing  exists  in  the  sense  assigned  to  the 
word  by  these  authors.  Even  in  New  England  there  are 
recognized  nearly  half  a  dozen  varieties  of  man.  I  could 
take  you  to  a  valley  in  Pennsylvania,  fifty  miles  long  by 
live  miles  wide,  crossed  by  an  invisible  ethnological  line, 
north-east  of  which  the  inhabitants  are  stout,  strong- 
headed,  handsome  descendants  of  north  Irish  Presby- 
terians ;  while  south-west  from  it  the  inhabitants  are 
Awmish  descendants  of  Swiss  mountaineers,  equally  good- 
looking  in  their  way.  Behind  this  valley,  and  on  the 
summit  of  the  Alleghany  mountains  2000  feet  above  the 
sea.  Count  Galitzin  established  his  colony  of  Polish 
Catholics,  and  their  monastery  is  still  in  use,  and  so  is 
their  cathedral.  Twenty  miles  farther  north,  in  the  heart 
of  the  forest,  is  the  settlement  of  a  wealthy  Englishman. 
Thirty  miles  fai-ther  north,  still  deeper  in  the  forest  and 
on  still  higher  ground,  spread  out  the  fields  of  St  Mary's, 
tilled  by  over  ten  thousand  French  Catholics.  Forty  miles 
noi'th-east  of  this  and  in  the  centre  of  the  great  forests  of 
the  Sinnemahoning  Ole  Bull  founded  his  unhappy  colony 
of  Swedes.  Forty  miles  to  the  north  of  this  again  would 
bring  us  to  the  settlements  of  the  Connecticut  men  up  on 
the  head  waters  of  the  Alleghany  river ;  and  an  equal  dis- 


110  ON   THE    UNITY  [lECT. 

tance  to  the  south  would  return  us  among  the  descendants 
of  the  race  which  inhabited  the  Black  Forest  and  the 
Vosges. 

Go  from  State  to  State  and  such  facts  will  face  you 
everywhere.  You  may  draw  two  lines  across  the  State  of 
Ohio  so  as  to  cut  it  into  three  regions,  each  with  a  separate 
ethnological  development^  distinct  in  appearance,  in  their 
manners  and  customs,  in  peculiarities  of  language  and  in 
their  religious  habits. 

But  what  is  that  Anglo-Saxon  race  concerning  which 
we  have  heard  so  much  and  to  which  no  one  has  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  giving  a  form  ?  Vogt  well  says  that  it  has  no 
existence ;  Max  Miiller  confirms  the  statement,  if  it 
needed  confirmation.  It  is  a  chaos  of  races,  this  so-called 
Anglo-Saxon  race.  And  so  is  the  population  of  the  United 
States  a  chaos  of  races ;  an  ethnological  moraine,  or  gravel 
terrace,  or  delta  deposit,  to  recur  to  the  illustration  already 
used.  We  cannot  yet  learn  from  it  anything  respecting 
those  great  laws  of  human  variation  which,  sooner  or  later, 
will  be  discovered. 

What  the  other  sciences  wait  for  is  this  ;  that  ethnology 
should  adopt  some  correct  method  of  investigation.  It 
has  been  well  said  that  ofttimes  a  proper  method  of  in- 
vestigating is  a  grander  and  more  useful  discovery  than 
any  which  the  investigation  itself  may  yield.  For  the 
discovery  of  a  right  method  is  so  much  absolute  abstract 
science  accomplished,  involving  as  it  does  the  knowledge 
of  principal  truths  in  their  prime  relations  ;  whilst  the  dis- 
coveries which  result  from  an  investigation  are  commonly 
themselves  mere  isolated  facts ;  and  facts  are  good  for  no- 
thing until  they  are  synthetically  converted  into  laws. 

Now  the  difficulty  of  devising  a  proper  method  for  ethno- 
logical research  arises  from  the  fact  that  there  are  two  oppo- 
site tendencies  in  nature — the  one  towards  differentiation  or 
individualization,  the  other  towards  integration  or  gener- 
alization. Nature  is  for  ever  at  war  with  herself,  pulling 
down  with  one  hand  Avhile  building  up  with  the  other. 
She  obeys  blindly  the  law  of  Christ  not  to  let  her  left 
hand  know  what  her  right  hand  doeth.  She  keeps  races 
separate ;  she  mixes  them  together.  She  gives  to  man  an 
intense  love  of  home,  a  powerful  associative  principle,  the 
rage  of  1(we,  the  fire  of  friendship,  the  pride  of  country. 


y.]  OF   MANKIND.  Ill 

the  bigotry  of  worsMp,  the  jealous  guardianship  of  property 
— all  this  to  develope  the  family  and  preserve  the  local 
type.  On  the  other  hand,  she  inspires  the  soul  with  a 
thirst  for  change,  with  curiosity  concerning  the  distant  and 
the  new,  with  the  love  of  conquests,  with  the  hopes  of 
betterment — all  these  to  develope  the  powers  of  the  indi- 
vidual man,  and  at  the  same  time  to  spread  out  population 
as  widely  as  possible. 

These  are  at  home  with  the  natural  law  that  offspring 
should  bear  the  characteristic  features  of  both  father  and 
mother.  And  if  this  were  the  only  law  of  inheritance  it 
would  be  easy  enough  to  make  out  the  exact  forms  and 
limits  of  each  race,  for  its  individuals  would  be  alike. 
But  there  is  another  law  in  force,  by  which  each  child 
inherits  only  a  Hmited  selection  of  the  characteristic 
features  of  father  and  mother ;  and  one  child  more  of  one 
and  another  child  more  of  another.  One  child  takes  on 
the  physical  form  of  the  father  with  the  mental  character  of 
the  mother ;  another  child  reverses  the  order  and  resem- 
bles the  father  in  mind  and  the  mother  in  body.  This 
latter  law,  therefore,  modifies  and  confuses  the  former, 
establishing  individual  variety  in  the  midst  of  stirpal  uni- 
formity. But  in  doing  so  it  also  provides  a  potent  means 
for  bringing  into  the  history  of  a  family  a  more  or  less 
complete  divergence  from  the  original  type ;  in  fact,  the 
production  of  a  new  race  out  of  an  old  one.  Were  this 
the  only  law  ethnology  would  be  an  impossible  science. 
Utter  confusion  would  attend  the  history  of  human  life. 

But  a  third  law  has  been  moreover  discovered.  It  is 
called  in  the  natural  history  of  the  lower  creatures  the 
law  of  alternate  generation,  by  which  the  jelly-fish  begets 
a  star-fish  and  the  star-fish  in  turn  begets  a  jelly-fish. 
This  law  is  strangely  powerful  over  human  character. 
I  think  that  as  a  rule  a  child  is  more  likely  to  resemble 
its  grandparents  than  its  parents.  By  this  law  hereditary 
diseases  like  scrofula  and  insanity  and  mental  and  bodily 
peculiarities  of  every  kind  appeal*,  lie  hid,  and  re-appear 
in  a  series  of  alternate  generations.  This  is  in  fact  that 
conservative  force  in  nature  which  strives  perpetually 
against  abnormal  variation,  and  insists  upon  a  return  to 
the  old  idea.  This  is  the-mysterious  under-current  by 
which  Mongol  heads  and  faces  are  forced  to  the  surface  of 


112  ON    THE    UNITY  [lECT. 

some  Teutonic  or  Celtic  stream.  I  have  seen  profiles  in  Phi- 
ladelphia which  might  have  been  copied  from  the  alabas- 
ter tablets  of  Khorsabad — pure  Assyrian  faces,  no  doubt 
the  product  of  Hebrew  blood  descended  through  forty 
centuries  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees. 

The  power  of  this  preserving  force  of  type,  whatever 
may  be  its  nature,  stamps  the  great  areas  of  the  earth^s 
surface  with  those  unmistakable  generalizations  to  which 
no  amount  or  intensity  of  individual  variation  can  make  us 
blind.  It  is  the  genius  of  the  race.  On  the  oldest  monu- 
ments of  the  Pharaohs  the  pictures  of  different  kinds  of 
dog  ai-e  recognized  by  any  child  as  the  pictures  of  the  dogs 
with  which  he  plays  to-day.  The  pictures  of  the  Negro, 
the  Jew,  the  Egyptian,  the  Scythian  are  perfect  likenesses 
of  the  Nubians,  Fellahs,  Jews,  and  Turks  of  to-day.  There 
you  may  see,  portrayed  in  colours  6000  years  old,  the  same 
slave-traders  driving  down  the  same  slave  coffles  as  in  the 
same  valley  of  the  Nile  to-day.  If  all  the  races  of  mankind 
are  variants  by  the  law  of  variation  from  the  form  of  Noah 
or  of  Adam,  then  how  infinitely  remote  must  have  been  the 
time  when  Noah  or  Adam  lived.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
the  law  of  constancy  in  form  has  kept  the  races  apart  from 
the  beginning,  how  numerous  must  be  the  list  of  actual 
human  races ;  how  closely  must  they  have  been  confined 
to  their  respective  centres  of  ci'eation  ;  and  how  difficult 
it  becomes  for  ethnology  to  devise  any  efficient  and  reliable 
method  of  research  for  explaining  the  mixture  of  races  in 
the  more  civilized  portions  of  the  earth  ! 

Let  me  fix  your  attention  for  a  moment  on  this  curious 
map  of  France,  published  in  the  memoirs  of  the  Royal 
Asiatic  Society  many  years  ago.  It  exhibits  the  depart- 
ments of  the  French  empire,  each  overspread  with  a  dif- 
ferent shade  of  colour  and  marked  with  a  certain  cypher. 
This  map  affords  a  brilliant  example  of  ethnological  method. 
You  are  perhaps  aware  that  the  French,  as  a  people,  are 
mulattoes  ;  but  a  general  observation  like  that  advances  us 
scarcely  a  step  in  true  science,  although  it  may  be  quite 
sufficient  to  stifle  the  clamour  which  slaveholders  have 
raised  against  the  possibility  of  '  miscegenation.''  It  is  in 
the  highest  degree  desirable  to  know  in  what  sense  and  to 
what  extent  the  French  people  are  mulattoes ;  in  what  pro- 
vinces and   departments  they  are  most  dark,  and  in  what 


I 


v.]  OF    MANKIND.  113 

other  proviuces  aud  departments  they  are  most  white. 
If  we  could  discover  by  some  accurate  uiethod  -say  by 
that  of  perceutao'es — some  law  of  increase  of  the  d:\rk 
element  in  French  blood  in  some  one  direction  and  of  the 
white  element  in  some  other,  we  should  come  into  posses- 
sion of  means  for  tracing  the  mixture  to  the  former  seats 
of  a  dark  race  in  the  first  direction  or  on  that  side  of 
France ;  and  of  a  white  race  whose  seat  was  in  the  other 
direction  on  the  opposite  side  of  France.  Now  that  is  pre- 
cisely what  this  map  enables  us  to  do.  You  observe  how 
the  percentage-shades  form  belts  running  across  the  king- 
dom from  N.W.  to  S.E.,  and  how  the  darker  belts  are 
those  upon  the  S.W.  or  Spanish  side,  while  the  lighter 
belts  are  on  the  N.E.  or  towards  Germany.  Until  this 
map  was  constructed  it  was  supposed  that  the  abori- 
ginal population  of  France  was  to  be  sought  for  in  the 
central  region  of  the  Cantal  and  the  mountains  of  Auvergne. 
But  you  see  how  steadily  and  equally  the  aboriginal  dark 
or  '  brown  '  race  of  France  as  it  is  called  has  been  pressed 
down  from  the  Rhine  and  the  Channel  towards  the  Bay 
of  Biscay  and  the  Pyrenees.  You  see  how  the  increase  of 
its  mixture  with  the  fair  German  race  has  been  in  propor- 
tion to  the  distance  from  the  Rhine.  As  for  the  wliite 
race  it  of  course  belonged  to  central  Europe,  and  was 
either  Sclavic  or  Teutonic,  perhaps  both,  certainly  in  part 
Teutonic.  But  the  dark  race  with  which  it  mixed  — what 
shall  we  thiuk  of  it  ?  Where  shall  we  find  it  pure  ?  The 
map  suggests  the  only  answer  to  these  questions.  The 
colour  deepens  to  a  maximum  where  the  Pyreneau 
mountains  meet  the  sea.  These  mountains  are  the  home  of 
three  divisions  of  one  race,  speaking  three  dialects  of  one 
language  called  the  Basque;  a  language  possessing  no 
well-proven  affinities  with  any  European  tongue  ;  but  sug- 
gesting some  resemblances  with  the  language  of  the  Finns, 
a  people  perhaps  related  to  the  same  circumpolar  race  to 
which  the  Esquimaux  belong.  These  Basques  are  sturdy 
mountaineers  and  have  never  been  driven  from  their  homes ; 
but  their  mountains  stood  with  their  feet  in  the  sea,  and 
the  Basques  became  great  fishermen  ;  the  Cabots  found 
the  banks  of  Newfoundland  covered  with  their  boats,  and 
it  is  said  that  they  sold  cod  by  name  in  the  markets  of 
Hambursr  and  Ha\Te    before  Columbus  made  his  first  vov- 


114  ON   THE    DNITY  [LECT. 

age.  The  native  word  is  not  'Basque'  but  'Escamara;' 
almost  identical  with  Esquimaux.  The  west  end  of  Brittany 
is  peopled  by  a  frag-ment  of  this  same  race  preserved  in  the 
same  manner  among  rocks  and  in  the  surf,  but  who  have 
exchanged  their  language  for  a  Celtic  dialect.  St  Malo  was 
celebrated  in  the  middle  ages  for  its  breed  of  sailors  who 
shared  with  the  southern  Basques  iu  the  fisheries  of  La- 
brador. Another  and  exceedingly  small  fragment  of  this 
mysterious  and  most  ancient  brown  race  exists  in  Ireland 
in  the  shape  of  a  group  of  hamlets  on  the  northern  shore 
of  Galway  bay  ;  the  people  intermarry  among  themselves 
and  have  little  in  common  with  the  Celtic  population  of  the 
country.  Now  if  we  track  the  brown  race  southward  we 
find  it  as  a  modifying  element  in  all  the  Spanish  peninsula, 
especially  among  the  Sierras  and  in  secluded  Portugal. 
Whatever  was  its  mixture  with  the  Celtic  blood  of  France 
it  formed  with  Celtic  blood  the  entire  humanity  of  Spain 
and  hence  the  name  which  the  Romans  gave  it,  Celt  Iberia. 
If  we  take  this  latter  name  Iberia  and  compare  it  with 
a  multitude  of  others  — I  will  not  weary  you  with  the  de- 
tails — we  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  in  the  brown  race  of 
western  Europe  we  have  a  division  of  the  great  aboriginal 
Berber  race  of  northern  Africa ;  a  conclusion  which  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  the  best  ethnologist  to 
have  advanced  with  any  confidence  until  some  such  method 
of  investigation  had  been  adopted  as  this  map  illustrates.* 
Not  by  suppositions  and  conjectures  but  only  by  a 
rigorous  self-denial  of  the  imagination  and  by  restricting 
it  to  its  proper  function,  the  invention  of  true  methods  of 
investigation,  can  the  questions  be  answered  which  eth- 

*  But  after  such  investigations  have  been  made,  these  direct  observa- 
tions are  of  value.  For  example,  in  18G2,  MM.  Martins,  Desor,  and  Escher 
de  hi  Linth  studied  the  Berbers  in  their  native  liaunts.  '  The  Sufites,' 
writes  Desor,  '  are  genuine  Berbers,  and,  as  such,  white  with  black  hair, 
lilsi'  the  southern  Europeans  ;  and  were  it  not  for  their  burnus  Martins 
mi!:;lit  have  rc(X)gnized  them  for  a  troop  of  scholars  from  some  viUage 
of  Provence  or  Languedoc.  But  one  thing  drew  our  attention,  the  very 
extended  form  of  the  head  ;  they  are  true  longheads  (dolicho-cephaloi),  as 
one  sees  chiefly  only  so  well  yjronounced  from  the  ancient  graves ;  the 
face  is  angular  and  thin,  the  teetii  vertical  and  beautifully  white  like  those 
of  all  these  peoples.  The  body  is  lank,  and  capable  of  marvellous  endur- 
ance.' (Letter  to  Liebig,  p.  29.)  I  say  nothing  here  of  the  superb  l  rain 
of  argument  coming  out  of  the  recent  rescarclies  into  the  dolmen  or  Druid 
architecture  of  Europe  and  Africa. 


V.  I  OF    JIANKJND.  115 

nologists  are  askiug  of  each  other  respecting  similar  mix- 
tures of  the  white  and  black  racer  in  other  parts  of  the 
world  ;  iu  India  and  Burmah,  for  example,  where  also  the 
aboriginal  element  seems  to  have  been  black,  and  to  have 
been  mixed  first  with  yellow  Tiiranian  blood  from  the  north- 
east, and  afterwards  with  white  Arian  blood  from  the  north- 
west. Were  this  a  course  of  lectures  on  Ethnology  proper 
I  would  gladly  take  up  these  questions  oue  by  one.  But 
I  must  occupy  the  few  minutes  I  have  left  in  sketching  out 
the  direction  which  the  inquiry  takes  in  bearing  upon 
the  connection  of  the  present  races  with  those  of  the  Stone 
or  Diluvial  age   and  with  the  ape    and  monkey  tribes. 

The  most  nobly  organized  races  are  the  most  migratory, 
because  they  have  the  faculties  of  self-protection  in  the 
highest  state  of  efl&ciency.  The  white  Shemite,the  Arab 
merchant,  traffics  in  person  every  year  from  Morocco  to 
Singapore.  He  has  imjirinted  his  alphabet,  his  cipher,  his 
unitarianism  upon  a  belt  of  the  earth^s  surface  extending 
from  the  Senegal  and  Gambia  to  Lake  Baikal.  He  has 
ennobled  by  mixture  with  his  own  blood  the  Khoord,  the 
Nubian,  the  Berber,  and  the  Celt.  How  far  back  this  be- 
ginning of  his  influence  would  go,  if  we  could  follow  it, 
we  cannot  yet  make  out.  But  what  is  true  of  this  sub- 
division of  the  great  white  race  is  true  of  the  white  race 
as  an  entire  whole.  It  has  mowed  a  broad  historic  swath 
along  the  temperate  zone,  subjugating,  proselyting,  ele- 
vating the  darker  and  poorer  races  which  had  previous 
possession  of  the  earth,  the  less  mixed  and  fragmentary 
remains  of  which  we  find  among  the  mountains  or  on  pro- 
montories  or  in  islands  in  the  sea. 

North  of  the  belt  of  this  historic  white  race  lies  the 
nearly  undisturbed  population  of  the  Arctic  zone.  To  the 
south  of  it  dwell  enormous  separated  masses  of  black  men. 
I  omit  all  mention  here  of  the  red  Indians  of  America  so 
as  not  to  complicate  the  subject.* 

*  De  Gobineau,  in  his  '  Essai  sur  I'inegalite  des  Races  Humaines,' 
Paris,  1853  (Phil.  Lib.),  devotes  the  16th  chapter  of  vol.  i.  to  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  characteristic  features  of  the  three  type  races ;  but  adds  that 
at  the  earliest  date  we  see  them  they  were  not  pure,  and  that  now  thev 
have  been  mixed  a  hundred  times.     (See  foot-note  to  Lecture  p.  184.) 

The  Melanian  variety,  he  says,  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  scale.  The 
animal  form  of  its  pelvis  fixes  its  destiny  from  the  moment  of  conception. 


116  ON    THE    UNITY  [leiT. 

These  i-aces  seem  to  be  as  different  in  species  as  wolves 
and  tuxes  differ  from  jackals   and  dogs.      There  is  abso- 

(A  Vicnchjeu  d'esprit.)  It  never  leaves  the  limits  of  restricted  iatel- 
lectuality.  But  it  is  no  brute,  pure  and  simple,  this  nef^ro  with  narrow, 
retreating  forehead,  carrying  in  the  middle  skull  indications  of  certain 
grossly  powerful  energies.  If  its  thinking  faculties  are  middling,  or  re- 
duced to  nothing,  it  possesses  in  desire,  and  therefore  in  its  will,  aterrible 
intensity.  Many  of  its  senses  are  developed  with  a  vigour  unknown  to 
the  two  other  races,*  especially  the  senses  of  taste  and  smell.  i5ut  pre- 
cisely on  the  avidity  of  its  sensations  lies  the  stamp  of  its  inferiority. 
All  aliments  are  good  for  it ;  nothing  disgusts,  nothing  repulses  it. 
(I'runer,  i.  183.)  Its  lust  is  to  eat,  to  eat  excessively,  with  fury.  No 
carrion  is  unworthy  of  its  stomach.  Its  lust  for  gross  odours  accommo- 
dates itself  to  tliose  most  odious.  To  these  chief  traits  is  added  an  un- 
stable humour,  a  fixless  variability  of  sentiment,  annulling  the  distinction 
between  vice  and  virtue  for  this  race.  Tlu;  very  rage  with  which  it  pursues 
the  ol)ject  which  has  put  its  sensitivity  into  vibration  and  intlained  its 
cupidity,  is  a  gauge  for  the  prompt  appeasing  of  the  one  and  the  rapid 
forgetfulness  of  the  other.  Lastly,  it  values  as  little  its  own  life  as 
another's.  It  kills  to  kill ;  and  so  this  human  machine,  so  easy  to  set  in 
motion,  is,  in  the  presence  of  suifering,  of  a  cowardice  taking  refuge  in 
death,  or  of  a  monstrous  impassibility. 

The  yellow  race  presents  the  antithesis  of  all  this.  The  cranium  pro- 
jects in  front.  Large,  bony,  salient  often,  developed  well  in  height,  ver- 
tical over  a  triangular  face,  wherein  the  nose  and  chin  have  none  of  those 
gross  and  rude  projections  of  the  negro.  A  tendency  to  obesity,  though 
not  a  special  trait,  recurs  more  frequently  in  the  yellow  than  in  the  other 
races.  Little  of  physical  vigour;  dispositions  to  apathy;  none  of  those 
strange  moral  excesses  so  common  to  the  blacks.  Feeble  desires  ;  a  will 
obstinate  rather  than  extreme  ;  a  taste  perpetual  but  tranquil  for  material 
pleasures  ;  rarely  gluttonous,  but  with  more  choice  of  aliments  than  the 
nei^TO  has.  In  all  this,  a  tendency  to  mediocrity  ;  a  comprehension  quick 
en(jugh,  but  neither  elevated  nor  profound  (quoting  Carus,  Weber  Ung. 
etc.,  p.  60) ;  a  love  of  the  useful ;  respect  for  law  ;  conscious  of  the  ad- 
vaiitages  of  a  certain  dose  of  liberty  ;  a  practical  race,  in  the  narrow 
inc.iuing  of  the  word ;  no  dreamers  nor  lovers  of  theories  ;  inventing 
lift  le,  but  able  to  appreciate  and  adopt  what  serves  its  turn  ;  their  desires 
lini  ted  to  living  as  softly  and  eomniodiously  as  they  can:  a  populace  and 
small  bourgeoisie,  which  every  civilizer  should  choose  for  the  basis  of 
his  society ;   but  not  to  give  society  nerve,  beauty,  or  action. 

The  white  race  has  reflecting  energy,  or  energetic  intelligence ;  the 
sense  of  the  uselul  in  a  larger,  higher,  more  courageous,  more  ideal  sense  : 
a  perseverance  in  plain  view  of  obstacles,  able  to  find  means  for  removing 
them  out  of  the  way ;  with  a  greater  physical  power ;  an  extraordinary 
inst  inct  for  order,  not  only  as  tlie  gauge  of  peace  and  rest,  but  as  the  in- 
dispensable means  of  conservation  ;  and  yet  a  well  pronounced  taste  for 
liberty,  even  in  extreme ;  a  declared  hostility  to  that  formal  shn-py 
Chinese  organization,  as  well  as  to  a  haughty  despotism,  the  only  l)ridie 
for  the  blacks.  The  white  men  are  distinguished  by  a  singular  love  of 
life,  prized  more  because  put  to  its  proper  uses  by  them.     Their  cruelty. 


▼.]  OK    MANKIND.  117 

lutely  no  reason  for  supposing  them  to  be  of  one  species 
except  an  absurd  legend  ascribed  to  an  ancient  Shemitic 
law-giver  and  preserved  among  a  number  of  similar 
legends  of  various  dates,  inconsistent  with  themselves, 
with  each  other  and  with  the  legends  of  surrounding 
nations.  The  legend  of  Adam  and  Eve  makes  all  man- 
kind descend  from  Cain  first  and  Seth  afterwards,  and  yet 
says  that  Cain  obtained  his  wife  before  Seth  was  bom,  and 
in  a  country  whither  he  had  fled  from  Adam  and  Eve  the 
only  other  human  beings  at  that  time  on  the  earth. 
Then  the  descendants  of  Seth  ai-e  made  to  live  each  one 
a  thousand  years,  and  when  the  earth  was  peopled,  partly 
by  a  crossing  of  the  human  stock  with  angelic  blood,  the 
work  of  the  Creator  was  entirely  spoilt  and  had  to  be 
begun  again;  the  x^Lntediluvians  were  all  destroyed;  and 
Noah  and  his  family  became  in  their  turn  the  sole  progeni- 
tors of  all  our  present  races.  As  one  of  Adam^s  'three 
sons  was  murdered  by  his  brother,  so  one  of  Noah's  three 
sons  was  cursed  by  his  father  and  his  descendants  handed 
over  into  bondage  to  the  descendants  of  the  other  two. 
Of  this  most  orthodox  adventure  a  most  diabolical  handle 
has  been  made  to  justify  the  enslavement  of  the  black 
race  by  the  white.  This  hotchpotch  of  old  Hebrew  legends,, 
niiide  sacred  to  our  hearts  by  lectures  from  the  pulpit  and 
recitations  at  the  mother's  knee — this  tissue  of  absurdity 
called  the  biblical  history  of  the  origin  of  mankind,  is  ab- 
solutely the  sole  and  entire  argument  for  not  considering 
tho  human  races  as  much  distinct  in  kind  and  origin  as  are 
the  llama  and  alpaca,  or  the  vicuna  and  alpaca,  or  the 
springbok  and  the  goat,  or  the  hare  and  the  rabbit,  or  the 
American   bison  and  the  European   cow,  or  the  wolf  and 

when  exercised,  is  couscious  of  its  own  excesses,  a  sentiment  very  proble- 
matical among  the  blacks.  Yet  they  find  reasons  for  leaving  this  occupied 
existence  witliout  a  murmur — for  honour,  first,  which  under  slightly  va- 
rious names  has  occupied  an  enormous  place  in  their  ideas  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  race.  Honour  and  its  fruit,  civilization,  are  not  known  to 
the  yellow  and  bhick  races.  But  this  intellectual  superiority  is  matched 
by  an  inferiority  in  their  sensations.  The  white  race  is  far  more  poorly 
endowed  in  sensual  faculties  than  the  other  two.  It  is,  therefore,  less 
solicited  and  absorbed  by  corporal  action,  although  its  structure  is 
remarkably  more  vigorous.  (Martins  says  the  European  surpasses  the 
black  in  the  intensity  of  the  nerve  fluid.     Reise  in  Erazilieu,  i.  259.) 

Here  Gobineau  has  his  tertiary  and  quaternary  mixtures  of  these  three 
grand  semndary  types. 


118  ON   THE    UNITY  [lEOT. 

the  dog,  or  the  dog  and  the  jackal,  or  the  camel  and  the 
dromedary ;  for  all  these  acknowledged  species  not  only 
breed   together    but   produce    under   certain   conditions 
fertile  offspring.* 

The  Swiss  naturalists  thought  that  they  had  estabhshed 
four  well-defined  types  of  Helvetic  skulls :  the  Sion  type, 
rather  long,  and  low  in  the  crown ;  the  Hohberg  type,  with 
a  pent-roof  shape;  the  Dissentis  type,  bullet-headed,  or 
square  as  it  is  usually  called  ;  and  the  Belle-air  type,  of  so 
mixed  a  character  that  it  was  soon  discarded.  The  other 
three  are  still  under  discussion.  The  Sion  type  is  identi- 
fied by  the  German  naturalists  as  that  of  the  Hiigel-graber 
or  gi-ave-mounds  of  the  valley  of  the  Ehine  ;  and  the  Hoh- 
berg type  (once  supposed  to  be  Eoman)  with  that  of  the 
Reihen-graber  skulls.  The  Sion  type  is  common  in  the 
caverns  of  Belgium  and  elsewhere.  But  in  the  caves  of  the 
south  of  France  appears  another  type,  a  small  round  head 
like  that  of  the  Laplander's ;  and  this  is  the  head  associated 
with  the  rein-deer  and  other  animals  of  that  remote  epoch. 
Pruner  Bey  therefore,  in  the  congress  of  1867  at  Paiis, 
insisted  strenuously  upon  the  necessity  for  recognising 
this  small  round  head  as  the  earliest  type  of  man  known 
to  us.  But  Professor  Vogt  objected  that  the  round  foi-m 
is  theoretically  the  most  perfect  of  all  forms,  giving  most 
weight  and  least  superficial  exposure ;  but  he  especially 
recalled  to  view  the  fact  never  to  be  forgotten  that  the 
low  Neanderthal  skull  (with  others  of  a  similar  but  not  so 
excessively  degraded  a  form)  is  equally  ancient,  and  of  a 
wholly  opposite  type.  If  the  Hyperborean  race  followed 
(or  led)  the  rein-deer  to  the  south  during  the  coming  on 
of  the  glacial  period  there  must  have  been  some  other  race 
also  already  in  the  field,  to  meet  and  perhaps  to  disappear 
for  a  time  before  it,  and  then  perhaps  to  reappear  after  the 
worlds  of  ice  had  melted  and  the  Arctic  zone  had  retreated 
within  its  polar  circle.  The  encomiums  lavished  on  the 
Engis  skull  are  not  only  a  little  extravagant  (for  although 
it  is  finely  shaped,  it  is  not  large),  but  its  exact  age  also 
has  never  been  satisfactorily  determined.  If  however  it 
be  both  very  ancient  and  also  Caucasian,  then  it  establishes 
a  third   superior   ancient  race  ;  or,  much  more  probably, 

*  Vogt,  vol.  ii.  216.     The  only  case  of  sterility,  well  autheuticated,  u 
that  of  the  mule  proper,  the  offspring  of  the  horse  and  ass. 


▼.]  OP    MANKIND.  119 

it  merely  proclaims   the  eternal  possibility  of  individual 
greatness  even  in  the  worst  of  times. 

I  account  it  probable,  then,  that  the  races  of  mankind 
have  always  been  distinct ;  and  that  they  probably  made 
their  appearance  on  the  planet  successively ;  perhaps  the 
black  and  meagre  races  first  and  the  white  races  last.  It 
would  not  be  strange  also  to  find  their  history  running  pa- 
rallel with  that  of  the  apes  and  monkeys.  For  it  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  in  the  three  types  of  manlike  ape,  viz.  the 
orang,  the  chimpanzee,  and  the  gorilla,  the  three  principal 
divisions  of  the  family  of  apes  have  found  their  last  and 
highest  development.  Whether  we  split  up  the  orangs 
and  the  gorillas  into  separate  species,  or  only  recognize 
in  them  varieties  like  those  which  separate  the  affiliated 
races  of  mankind,  it  is  certain  that  each  of  the  three  man- 
like ape-forms  presents  its  own  characteristic  manlike 
feature.  The  chimpanzee  approaches  man  more  closely  in 
the  form  of  the  skull  and  in  the  character  of  its  teeth. 
The  orang  approximates  the  human  ideal  especially  in  the 
construction  of  its  brain.  The  gorilla  resembles  man  rather 
in  the  make  of  his  extremities.  Neither  one  of  the  three 
can  be  said  to  stand  absolutely  nearer  to  man  than  the 
other  two.  All  three  strive  to  reach  the  human  ideal,  but 
on  different  sides  of  the  common  development.  The  orang, 
says  Gratiolet,  stands  at  the  head  of  the  family  of  gibbons 
and  baboons  on  account  of  the  size  of  its  forehead,  the 
relative  smallness  of  its  backhead  and  the  development  of 
its  upper  lobes  :  in  other  words,  it  has  a  better  developed 
gibbon  brain.  The  chimpanzee  shows  unmistakable  anal- 
ogies of  brain,  skull,  and  face  with  the  makaken,  and 
especially  Avith  the  magot,  and  stands  in  the  same  well- 
developed  relation  to  the  makakos  and  pavians  that  the 
orang  does  to  the  gibbons  and  baboons.  The  gorilla  is  a 
mandrill  by  force  of  similar  analogies,  by  its  lack  of  tail, 
its  breadth  of  breast-bone,  its  singularity  of  gait,  walking 
npon  the  back  or  outer  side  of  its  two  last  finger-joints. 
There  has  been,  then,  an  unmistakable,  threefold,  and 
parallel  development  of  the  ape  ideal,  along  three  historic 
lines  from  three  original  family  groups.*  I  do  not  myself 
see  what  forbids  us  from   supposing  that  the  process  of 

*  See  Schroder  van  der  Kolk  and  Vrolik's  fivefold  resemblance  inVogt, 
iL283. 


120  ON  THE   UNITY  [LECT. 

development  went  on  to  the  production  of  those  human 
forms  of  an  acknowledged  want  of  beauty  and  spirituality, 
of  an  acknowledged  ape-like  appearance,  which  we  find 
populating  the  very  regions  of  the  chimpanzee,  gorilla, 
and  orang,  viz.  the  brutal  black  races  of  tropical  Africa, 
and  the  negritoes  of  Anderman  and  New  Holland. 

The  objection  I  know  is  at  hand  that  there  are  no  in- 
termediate forms  existing  between  those  man-like  apes 
and  these  ape-like  men.  But  I  think  the  force  of  this  ob- 
jection is  broken  by  sevoial  considerations.  And  first,  by 
the  consideration  that  such  intermediate  forms  need  not 
for  the  sake  of  the  argument  exist  in  masses  or  tribes. 
Individuals  scattered  all  over  the  world,  through  all  the 
human  races,  with  low  foreheads,  small  brains,  long  arms, 
thin  legs,  projecting  task-like  teeth,  suppressed  noses, 
and  other  marks  of  arrested  development;  to  say  nothing 
of  millions  of  idiots  and  cretins  produced  by  the  same 
arrest  in  every  generation  of  mankind,  sustain  the  argu- 
ment. 

Then,  secondly,  we  must  consider  that  such  intermediate 
forms  may  have  existed  in  immense  numbers  and  tlren 
disappeared,  for  all  we  know  to  the  contrary.  Nay,  mul- 
titudes of  them  may  exist  in  the  fossil  state  still  undis- 
covered. Yogt  has  well  observed  that  20  years  ;igo 
not  a  single  fossil  ape  had  been  made  out.  During  these 
20  years  nearly  a  dozen  have  been  found.  One  year  ago 
no  intermediate  form  between  the  schlankaffen  and  maka- 
V-^n  was  known  ;  now  w?  have  the  whole  skeleton  of  on<\* 
Such  intermediate  types  are  continually  turning  up. 

And,  thirdly,  Ave  must  keep  in  mind  most  carefully  that 
skulls  have  been  found  in  caves  which  would  have  been 
undoubtedly  assigned  to  apes  had  not  other  parts  of  the 
skeleton  been  found  at  the  same  time  compelling  the 
anatomist  to  assign  them  to  some  ancient  form  of  humanity ; 
precisely  as  in  the  instance  of  the  fossil  ape  discovered  in 
Oreece,  by  its  skull  it  would  have  been  pronounced  a  pure 
baboon,  had  not  its  limbs  been  those  belonging  to  a 
species  of  makaken. 

And,  fourthly,  when  we  compare  the  cave  and  lake  and 
diluvial  skidls    as  yet  discovered   with  the  skulls  of  the  Aus- 
tralian natives  (accepted  as  the  most  degraded  or  apelixe 
*  Vogt,  ii.  279. 


v.]  OF    MANKIND.  121 

race  now  living  on  the  earth),  the  resemblance  in  most 
cases  (setting  the  Engis  skull  aside)  is  so  extraordinary 
that  we  may  bo  reasonably  excused  for  suspecting  that  the 
early  races  of  mankind  were  farther  removed  in  the  order 
of  development  from  the  noblest  races  now  existing  than 
the  apes  are  removed  from  them. 

Let  us  praise  God  for  our  place  in  this  procession  of 
mysteries.  If  natural  history  sht)uld  hereafter  teach  the 
truth  of  our  descent  from  these  inferior  beings  Christianity 
wiil  always  teach  humility.  Let  us  comfort  our  pride  by 
remembering  that  everything  has  been  good  and  perfect 
in  its  day  and  generation. 


LECTURE  VI. 


ON   THE    EARLY    SOCIAL    LIFE    OP    MAN. 

The  tree  is  known  by  its  fruit.  We  have  been  con- 
sidering man  as  a  being ;  henceforth  we  are  to  regard  him 
as  a  worker  :  first,  as  a  social  being,  a  worker  in  brass  and 
iron,  a  maker  of  boats  and  bridges,  an  inventor  of  weapons, 
and  a  framer  of  laws  ;  then,  as  an  intellectual  being,  a 
poet  or  maker  j9a.r  excellence,  an  artist,  a  philosopher,  a 
priest. 

It  is  not  as  easy  to  distinguish  races  by  degrees  of  facial 
angle  as  by  grades  of  civilization.  Perhaps  we  have  a 
right  to  say :  as  only  some  races  of  animals  are  tamable,  so 
only  certain  races  of  mankind  are  civilizable.  As  the  car- 
nivora  love  blood,  and  the  ruminants  and  pachyderms  love 
foliage  and  grass,  so  do  some  races  of  mankind  love  tents 
and  waggons,  while  othei's  prefer  cities  and  ships.  But 
after  all  our  efforts  to  include  these  social  tendencies 
among  the  anatomical  or  physiological  characteristics  of 
mankind  they  recoil  upon  us  as  mere  harmonies  of  man 
with  nature.  So  long  as  large  areas  of  the  earth's  surface 
consist  of  desert  sands  or  grassy  plains  so  long  will  there 
be  nomade  races  to  inhabit  them ;  mountains  will  breed 
mountaineers  ;  deltas  grow  cities.  The  fishing  rates  do  not 
seek  the  seashore,  they  are  pi-oduced  by  it.  The  forest 
gives  birth  to  the  hunter  as  it  does  to  the  deer  and  wild- 
boar  after  which  he  stalks. 

If  this  be  so,  and  if  forests  have  disappeared  frum  civil- 
ized lands  by  the  agency  of  man,  it  follows,  that  when 
the  earliest  races  of  mankind  appeared  they  appeared  in 
the  form  of  fishing  and  hunting  savages,  the  form  most  in 
harmony  with  the  physical  condition  of  the  greater  part 
of  the  earth's  surface  at  tliat  time.  There  were  no  doubt 
then  as  now    natural  paradises  existing  here  and  there 


ON    THE    EAKLY    aOClAL    LIFE    OF    MAN.  123 

wherein  some  section  of  a  single  race  would  take  on  a 
quicker  civilization  than  elsewhere.  But  he  must  be  blind 
who  cannot  detect  the  traces  of  that  long,  hard,  desperate, 
bloody,  cruel,  demon-like  conflict  between  the  earhest 
men  and  all  the  adverse  powers  of  the  air  and  earth  — a 
conflict  in  which  all  the  advantage  was  on  nature's  side  — 
but  the  victory  on  man's,  because  the  genii  of  mind  came 
to  his  relief. 

All  civilization  comes  of  work.  The  race  that  will  not 
work  cannot  get  civilized.  Yet  mere  work  is  not  a  civil- 
izer.  Leisure  is  indispensable.  The  French- Canadian 
works  from  four  in  the  morning  until  six  and  seven  at 
night,  but  his  civilization  is  not  high.  Civilization  is  like 
navigation.  It  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
whether  there  be  a  current  with  you  or  a  current  against 
yovi.  In  the  tropics  and  at  the  poles  the  powers  of  nature 
are  too  many  for  man.  If  he  barely  sleep  he  will  do  weU. 
So  also  in  the  early  ages,  even  in  the  temperate  zone,  man- 
kind needed  reinforcement.  The  black  race  which  can- 
not advance  under  the  equator  any  more  than  can  the 
pigmy  race  around  the  pole,  civilizes  itself  when  it  is 
transferred  to  the  40th  parallel  of  latitude  provided  there 
be  given  to  it  a  chance  to  work.  The  progress  of  the 
black  race  in  the  United  States  under  all  its  disadvantages 
has  been  respectable.  Give  it  the  freedom  of  the  plough, 
the  anvil,  and  the  loom,  that  is  the  right  to  enjoy  the 
results  of  varied  and  honest  labour,  and  you  will  give  it 
the  enjoyment  of  so  much  leisure  afterwards  as  the  high- 
est civilization  needs. 

No  race  has  ever  yet  consented  to  work  for  nothing 
cheerfully.  All  the  sense  of  justice  man  has  comes  trom 
resistance  to  that  attempt.  If  the  reconstruction  of  South- 
ern society  is  to  be  a  success  it  can  be  so  only  on  condi- 
tion that  the  white  man  share  the  soil,  the  shop,  the 
schoolroom,  and  the  forum  with  the  black.  That  the 
black  race  is  willing  to  buy  civilization  at  its  natural 
price,  that  is  with  work,  has  been  demonstrated.  But  to 
show  you  how  delicate  a  test  of  justice  work  can  be  I  will 
tell  you  a  story  which  a  friend  of  mine,  an  engineer  upon 
a  Southern  railroad,  told  to  me.  ^ 

A  railroad  was  projected  through  the  swamp-lands  of 
Florida.     Slaves  were  hired  from  the  planters  of  Georgia 


124  ON   THE    EARLY  [lKCT. 

to  do  the  work.  A  day's  task  for  every  man  was  measured 
with  a  ten-foot  pole.  The  slaves  rose  early  and  by  work- 
ing diligently  could  complete  their  tale  of  work  by  two  or 
three  o'clock  and  have  the  rest  of  the  day  for  their  auiuse- 
ment.  They  soon  discovered  this  advantage  and  threw 
their  whole  soul  into  the  business.  Before  noon  nothing 
was  to  be  seen  but  the  flying  dirt ;  afternoon  nothing  but 
song  and  dance  and  general  cheer.  This  was  too  good  to 
last.  The  avaricious  contractors  made  new  poles,  18  inches 
instead  of  12  to  the  foot.  The  day's  task  was  unaccount- 
ably lengthened  by  an  hour  or  more.  The  blacks  could 
ofter  no  explanation  and  made  no  resistance,  for  the 
work  was  still  within  the  range  of  cheerful  diligence. 
Another  month  passed  by  and  a  third  set  of  poles  were 
distributed.  The  foot  had  now  become  14  inches  long 
and  the  day's  task  lasted  until  sunset.*  The  defrauded 
labourers,  seeing  that  there  was  no  use  struggling  with  an 
unjust  despotism,  returned  to  plantation-habits,  shirked 
all  the  work  they  could,  lost  heart  and  fell  back  into  that 
barbarism  the  essence  of  which  consists  in  giving  up  the 
soul  a  prey  to  the  forces  of  nature.  The  contractors  had 
overshot  their  mark  ;  and  so  one  of  these  monuments  of  the 
high  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century  served  only  to 
remind  the  spectator  of  the  aboriginal  condition  of  the 
races  of  mankind  before  they  had  learned  to  hope  to  better 
their  miserable  plight. 

Rain,  hail,  and  snow,  and  the  furious  piercing  north 
wind  were  the  slave-drivers  of  that  age.  The  perpetual 
growth  of  the  forest  and  the  rapid  increase  of  wild  ani- 
mals were  the  measuring-rods  which  mysteriously  length- 
ened out  their  task.  No  wonder  that  despondency  grew 
out  of  ignorance,  and  barbarity  out  of  despair.  It  is  hard 
to  comprehend  the  possible  beginnings  of  civilization  in  a 
wilderness  of  forests  and  mountains,  pelted  with  storms 
and  horrible  with  the  cries  of  wild  beasts.     Yet  such  waa 

*  The  difference  in  Hie  tasks,  it  should  be  remembered,  is  to  be  estimated 
in  cubic  measure. 

One  cubic  foot         12  x  12  x  12  =  iV28' 
„         „     measure  18  x  1.3  x  13  =  2197,  nearly  28  per  cent. more 

than  a  true  cubic  toot. 
One  cubic  measure  14  x  14  x  14  =  2794,  nearly  60  per  cent,  more 

than  a  true  cubic  foot. 


VI.]  SOCIAL    LlfK    OF    MAN.  125 

Europe  dowu  to  a  recent  date,  i.e.  to  within  a  few  centu- 
ries of  tlie  Christian  era.  Such  was  all  North  America 
two  hundred  years  ago  with  the  exception  of  a  few  river 
bottoms,  a  few  glades  and  a  few  estuary  marshes  on  the 
seacoast.  In  Europe  also  such  places  early  became  refuges 
and  nurseries  for  man.  It  is  therefore  in  the  open  plain 
of  Languedoc,  on  the  borders  of  the  delta  of  the  Rhone, 
and  on  the  great  chalk  basin  of  central  and  northern 
France  and  southern  England  that  relics  of  the  most 
ancient  races  have  been  chiefly  found.  Bat  even  here 
they  are  commingled  with  the  remains  of  tigers  and 
hyenas,  wild  boars  and  bulls,  the  bear,  the  wolf  and  the 
doer,  and  even  of  the  rhinoceros,  the  hippopotamus  and 
the  elephant,  in  such  numbers  and  of  such  a  size  as  to  tell 
a  plain  story  of  the  most  savage  existence.  When  we  re- 
member that  the  only  weapons  which  the  men  of  the  cave 
had  at  their  command  were  fire,  and  the  bow  and  arrow,  tlie 
riint  hatchet  fastened  to  its  wooden  handle  with  a  willow- 
withe  or  a  shrunken  piece  of  deer-skin,  or  the  pike  pointed 
^vith  a  reindeer  prong  or  a  wild  boards  tusk ;  and  that  the 
(mly  farming  implement  they  knew  of  was  a  paddle  of 
flint,  chipped  thin  and  broad  and  worked  by  hand  without 
;i.  handle,  our  wonder  grows  how  civilization  could  have 
found  a  time  and  starting-point. 

It  was  no  doubt  in  order  to  avoid  their  natural 
enemies  the  Avild  beasts,  and  perhaps  also  to  defend 
themselves  against  each  other,  that  some  tribes  whose 
hunting-grounds  lay  neighbouring  to  lakes  betook  them- 
selves to  a  peculiar  mode  of  life.  They  planted  upright 
logs  in  the  lake  bottom,  supporting  them  with  heaps  of 
scones,  and  lashing  them  together  with  wicker-work.  On 
these  they  laid  a  wooden  platform  communicating  with 
the  shore  by  a  wooden  bridge  or  causeway.  On  this 
platform  stood  their  wigwams.  Here  the  women  and 
children  were  comparatively  safe  when  the  men  were  on 
sliore  hunting,  or  farming  or  at  war.  On  the  edges  of  the 
platform  they  sat  to  fish.  In  the  centre  of  each  wigwam 
pex'liaps  was  a  layer  of  earth  to  cook  their  fish  upon. 
Trap-doors  in  the  village  floor  received  the  ofial,  the  bones 
of  animals  after  the  marrow  had  been  extracted,  fragments 
of  broken  pottery,  the  waste  of  spoiled  nets  and  ruined 
weapons.     Hundreds   of  the  sites  of  these  villages  have 


126  ON    THE    EARLY  [lECT. 

been  recently  discovered*  in  the  lakes  of  Switzerland, 
Bavaria,  and  Austria,  and  thousands  of  such  relics  of  their 
domestic  life,  but  as  yet  only  two  skulls. t  It  is,  therefore, 
certain,  that  these  people  were  not  habitual  cannibals ;  for 
in  that  case  human  skeletons  would  be  abundant.  It  is 
equally  evident  that  they  either  burned  their  dead  or 
buriodthem  onshore.  That  both  these  customs  were  pur- 
sued at  different  times  we  have  good  evidence.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  oldest  skull  yet  found  in  these  lake- 
dwellings  presents  us  again  with  all  the  low-type  features 
of  the  Neanderthal  cranium ;  great  ridges  over  the  orbits 
of  the  eyes,  a  suddenly  retreating  forehead,  and  extremely 
small  capacity.  It  contained  what  seems  an  undeveloped 
brain;  but  yet  it  could  not  have  been  (as  some  were  in- 
clined to  consider  the  Neanderthal  cranium)  the  skull  of  an 
idiot.  These  people  were  far  from  being  idiots.  They 
were  only  animals.  The  essential  difference  between  an 
idiot  and  an  animal  consists  in  this  fact :  the  idiot,  like 
the  unborn  foetus,  is  not  aware  of  his  relations  to  sur- 
rounding nature;  his  life  goes  on  chemically,  not  con- 
sciously ;  the  animal  on  the  contrary  is  wide-awake  to  his 
position  and  its  demands.  Indeed,  the  quickness  and 
many-sidedness  of  this  self-consciousness  is  the  nicest  scale 
we  have  by  which  to  grade  the  animal  creation.  Behold 
the  deer  for  instance ;  how  alive  to  every  sound  and 
motion  !  how  skilful  to  hide  !  how  prompt  to  fly  !  And 
yet  I  have  myself  stood  for  half  an  hour  by  my  transit 
instrument  in  the  woods  of  the  Towanda  Mountains,  wait- 
ing until  my  men  cut  out  a  line  down  the  long  steep  slope 
into  a  valley ,  and  during  all  this  time  I  have  seen  a  deer 
stand  motionless  watching  the  brilliant  spot  of  light  which 
the  sunbeams  through  the  trees  made  on  the  brass  cylinder 
of  my  telescope  not  fifty  paces  distant,  unaware  of  my 
presence  and  unconscious  of  danger.  In  vain,  says  the 
poet  of  old,  is  the  net  spread  in  the  sight  of  any  bird. 
The  consciousness  of  its  relations  is  not  complete  in  any 

*  Beginniug  with  the  dry  winter  of  1853-4,  Meiien,  on  Lake  Zurich. 

t  One  (mentioned  in  Rutimeyer's  Die  Fauna  der  Pfahlbauten  in  der 
Schweitz,  p.  181.  Basel,  1861),  at  Meiien,  ou  Lake  Zurich,  early  stone 
period,  called  by  Prof.  His  an  intermediate  type  between  the  long  and 
short-headed  forms  ;  and.  therefore,  not  like  the  small  round  beads  of  the 
Danish  pent-inosses  ;  the  othiT  loiuid  by  Desor,  1861,  and  referred  to  in 
the  text. 


n.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF    MAN.  127 

animal ;  but  it  is  more  complete  in  some  than  in  otliei-s. 
The  horse  is  superior  to  the  deer;  yet  the  horse  rushes 
into  not  out  of  a  burning  stable.  The  ape  is  superior  to 
all  animals  below  man,  because  his  powers  of  observation 
have  more  scope,  his  comprehension  of  emergencies  is 
more  logical ;  he  shows  an  inventive  genius  harmonizing 
with  this  higher  degree  of  self-consciousness,  and  hence 
he  more  perfectly  imitates  the  brutal  customs,  the  virtues 
and  the  vices  of  mankind.  The  difference  between  the  ape 
and  the  civilized  man  lies  in  the  limitation  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  ape  to  his  physical  and  passional  relationships 
to  nature ;  while  the  self-consciousness  of  the  civilized 
man  deals  also  with  the  subjects  of  abstract  thought  and 
with  the  invisible  and  eternal  worlds.*  But  this  is  the 
precise  distinction  between  the  cave  or  lake-dwellers  of 
early  Europe  and  the  Londoner  or  Bostonian  of  to-day; 
and  thus  we  are  returned  once  more  to  the  idea  of  the 
affiliation  of  the  apes  with  mankind  in  the  early  stages  of 
its  existence. 

That  these  old  lake- dwellers  were  in  no  respects  idiotic 
is  evident  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case  :  a  race  of 
idiots  could  no  more  continue  to  exist  than  unborn  chil- 
dren could.  But  their  handicraft  is  still  more  conclusive 
evidence.  In  the  museum  of  M.  Troyon  of  Lausanne  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  examining  a  piece  of  a  door,  half- 
burned,  consisting  of  three  boards  two  of  which  lay  side 
by  side  but  not  rabbited  together  ;  the  third  board  crossed 
the  other  two  at  right  angles  to  hold  them  together ;  but 
instead  of  being  nailed  or  pegged  fast  to  them,  it  was  as 
regularly  dovetailed  into  them  as  a  carpenter  of  our  days' 
would  have  done  it.  I  saw  also  among  these  curious 
objects  pieces  of  twisted  thread  and  knotted  net.  Their 
clothes  were  probably  of  skins,  and  loom- weaving  was  as 
yet  unknown,  but  specimens  of  plaited  cloth  have  been 
found.  I  saw  needles  of  bone  to  sew  with ;  and  pieces  of 
charred  baked  bread  in  the  form  of  flat  round  cakes ;  and 
grains  of  wheat  and  barley.  The  small  wild  apple  and 
pear  of  the  Swiss  woods  have  also  been  dredged  up,  wild 
plum-stones,  and  beech  and  hazel-nuts  in  great  abund- 
ance. 

•  I  will  return  to  this  subject  in  the  beginning  of  the  Tenth  Lecture. 


128  ON    THE    EARLY  [LECT. 

How  pleasant  it  would  be  to  have  a  dinner-scene  of 
those  days  by  Teniers,  or  a  page  of  table-talk  by  Cole- 
ridofe  !  What  a  contrast  would  it  present  to  the  Bound 
Table  of  Arthur  and  his  paladins  !  or  to  a  d^jeinier  at 
the  Maison  Dore  in  1865  !  The  table  can  be  seen,  with  its 
dish,  in  the  Museum  of  the  Irish  Academy ;  but  whei-e  are 
the  guests  ?  It  was  discovered  in  a  peat-bog  in  County 
Tyrone,  ten  feet  beneath  the  surface.  The  table  and  the 
dish  were  each  scooped  out  of  a  solid  piece  of  wood, 
apparently  fir.  An  oblong  table,  with  its  ends  curved  in- 
ward, and  set  on  four  short  legs  four  and  a  half  inches 
high,  truncated  cones  connected  at  their  bases  by  a  low 
rim  in  which  are  two  cord  holes  ;  and  an  oval  dish  four  or 
five  inches  deep,  in  its  edge  two  holes  answering  to  the 
two  holes  in  the  rim  of  the  table,  and  probably  slung  to  it 
on  the  back  in  travelling.  Beside  the  dish  lay  a  large  heap 
of  hazel-nuts,  probably  an  autumnal  hoard  just  gathered 
foi'  winter's  use.  Perhaps  they  were  uproariously  enjoy- 
ing their  repast  when  interrupted  by  the  rush  of  some 
carnivorous  beast   scattering  their  merriment.* 

How  long  the  ages  were  during  which  these  lake-dwell- 
ings were  inhabited  we  do  not  know.  We  know  that  they 
existed  still  in  the  days  of  Herodotus ;  and  the  Swiss 
antiquaries  believe  that  those  of  Neville  and  Chavanues 
in  the  Canton  de  Yaud  continued  to  be  dwelt  on  to  the 
VI til  century  after  Christ.  There  are  sufiicient  evidences 
in  the  articles  found  to  distinguish  them  as  of  very  diti'er- 
ent  ages.  The  iron  age  of  the  Romans  is  represented ; 
the  preceding  age  of  bi'onze  ;  and  a  still  more  ancient  age 
•  of  stone,  perhaps  going  back  to  the  times  succeeding  the 
retreat  of  the  Swiss  glaciers.  We  cannot  tell  therefore 
at  what  time  wild  apples,  plums,  and  berries  were  ex- 
changed for  wheat  and  barley  bread;  nor  when  the  skins 
of  beasts  were  replaced  by  plaited  cloth.  The  best  scale 
of  years  we  have  is  got  from  Rutimeyer's  list  of  the 
animals  on  which  these  ancients  fed,  and  especially  by  the 
marked  change  from  wild  to  domestic  flesh.  In  all  of  the 
lake-dwelling  deposits,  even  the  oldest,  we  find  the  bones 
of  the  domesticated  ox,  sheep,  goat  and  dog;  and  inter- 
mixed with  these  in  various  localities  bones  of  the  horse 
and  nss,  bones  of  the  elk  and  stag,  the  roe  and  fallow-deer, 

*  O'Calliglian,  Proc.Geol.  and  P.  S.,  W.  ]i.  Yorksliiio,  p.  315,1863-4. 


VT.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OP    MAN.  120 

the  ibex  and  the  chamois,  the  bison  and  wild  bull,  the 
small  swamp-hog  and  the  great  wild  boar,  the  wolf  and 
fox,  the  bear  and  the  badger,  the  marten,  polecat,  ermine, 
and  weasel,  the  otter  and  the  beaver,  the  hedgehog, 
squirrel  and  fieldmouse,  the  wildcat  and  the  hare,  tho 
frog  and  the  tortoise,  tlie  wild  swan,  goose,  two  kinds  of 
ducks  and  fifteen  other  kinds  of  birds.  All  that  contained 
marrow  are  found  split  open  :  this  is  invariably  the  case 
with  those  of  the  bull  and  bison.  In  the  most  ancient 
villages,  like  those  of  Wangen  and  Moosseedorf,  the 
evident  predominance  of  bones  of  the  wild  stag  and  roe 
over  those  of  tame  cattle  show  a  decided  preference  of  the 
chase  to  a  more  civilized  mode  of  life  ;  the  tame  pig  is 
wanting,  goats  outnumber  sheep,  the  fox  was  an  habitual 
dish. 

^\^len  the  bronze  age  opened,  the  Lithuanian  aurochs  or 
bison  (bos  bison,  bos  priscus)  ceased  to  be  eaten  *  and  the 
savages  began  to  tame  the  great  wild  bull  (bos  urus,  or 
priuiigenius)  which  Cassar  describes  as  still  existing  in  his 
day,  tierce,  swift,  and  strong,  and  scarcely  inferior  to  the 
elephant  in  size  ;  in  its  tamed  state  its  bones  became  some- 
what less  massive  and  heavy,  and  its  horns  somewhat 
smaller.  At  this  time  they  added  to  the  common  dog,  which 
seems  to  have  been  their  companion  from  the  beginmng,t  a 
new  large  hunting  dog ;  and  with  it  a  small  horse,  which 
however  must  have  been  veiy  rare  among  them.  By  this 
time  the  elk  and  beaver  had  become  extirpated ;  and  the 
fox  had  ceased  to  be  a  fashionable  article  of  diet. 

In  looking  over  this  list  it  seems  very  remarkable  tha\' 
two  animals  are  absent  from  it  which  we  should  have  sup- 
posed almost  the  very  first  to  be  discovered.  Of  the  hare 
only  one  single  fragment  of  a  bone  has  as  yet  been  found ; 
and  we  can  only  explain  its  absence  by  Caesar's  account 
of  the  holy  horror  with  which  the  Britons  of  his  day  re- 
garded it  and  with  which  the  Laplanders,  who  represent 
the  ancient  hyperborean  race  in  Europe,  still  regard  it.  Of 
the  domestic  cat  also  there  is  not  a  trace  until  we  come 
down  to  the  very  youngest  villages,  those  assigned  to  the 
Vlth  century.  +    And  this  again  is  in  curious  harmony  with 

*  Protected  by  Czars  in  one  Lithuanian  forest,  to  the  present  day. 
t  The  oldest  of  man's  gods,  the  Anubis  of  Egypt. 
j  Lyell,  Ant.  of  Man,  p.  26.    Desor's  Palafittes-  Smithson,  Cont.  18t)t'. 

9 


130  ON    THE   EARLY  [lBCT, 

tiie  fact   that  no  trace  of  tlie  cat  exists  on  the  most  ancient 
monuments  of  Egypt.* 

The  absence  of  the  reindeer,  on  the  other  hand,  is  merely 
an  evidence  of  the  far  inferior  antiquity  of  these  lake- 
dwellings  to  those  remains  of  man  which  have  been  found 
in  the  caves  of  France, 

I  have  said  enough  to  give  you  a  picture  of  long  middle 
stages  in  the  primeval  history  of  European  humanity  in 
Switzerland.  But  it  is  necessary  to  say  a  few  more  words 
about  its  phases  farther  north.  Let  us  look  for  a  moment 
at  a  more  inhospitable  region.  Let  me  ask  you  to  keep  in 
mind  that  in  every  age,  no  matter  how  far  back  we  go,  we 
find  men  living  everywhere ;  living  under  different  circum- 
stances, but  living  everywhere.  I  shall  say  something  in 
due  time  about  migrations.  But  I  wish  you  to  observe 
just  now  that  theories  of  migration  are  the  most  unsatis- 
factory products  of  science.  In  days  preceding  the  oldest 
migrations  of  which  we  can  obtain  any  glimpse  the  entire 
surface  of  the  earth  seems  to  have  been  just  as  completely 
settled  as  it  is  to-day.  In  the  Stone  age,  while  the 
Helvetian  aborigines  were  platting  cloth  and  cooking 
domestic  cattle  on  elaborately  constructed  platforms  in  the 
lake-waters  of  the  south  a  race  of  utter  savages  were 
sitting  around  fires  on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic  with  not 
a  single  domesticated  animal  to  call  their  own  except  the 
dog,  and  that  a  smaller  species  ;  gnawing  the  flesh  and 
splitting  the  marrow-bones  of  wild  bulls  now  extinct,  of 
foxes,  wolves,  and  lynxes,  red-deer  and  roes  ;  beavers  long 
since  extinct,  and  seals  now  very  rare;  with  penguins  and 
capercailzies,  both  now  extinct  in  Scandinavia.  But  I  am 
wrong  to  call  them  uffer  savages,  for  they  had  already 
learned  the  art  of  boat-building, f  and  were  bold  fishermen, 
as  we  can  see  by  the  bones  of  hei'ring,  cod,  and  flounders 
which  are  found  among  the  mounds  of  kitchen  trash  which 
line  the  shores  and  mark  their  haunts.     But  they  were  not 

•  Mariette's  Researches.  Renan's  article  in  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,  April,  1S65. 

t  Rude  canoes  scooped  from  trunks  are  often  found  in  British  peat- 
bogs, sometimes  with  thei^  short  clumsy  paddles,  and  in  rare  instanees,  a 
rope  of  moss  or  heather,  attaclied  to  a  stone  close  by.  showin;^  the  primi- 
tive mode  of  anchorage.  A  very  perfect  specimen  lately  discovered  in  the 
valley  of  the  Aire,  is  in  the  museum  at  Leeds.  But  such  canoes  are  of 
aU  ages.   (O'Callighan,  Proc.  Geol.  Pol.  S.  W.  R.  York.  1863-4,  p.  314. 


VI.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF    MAN,  131 

cannibals.  No  human  bones  make  these  heaps  horrible. 
In  spite  of  the  over-confident  assertion  of  Mr  John  Craw- 
ford who  said  in  a  recent  debate  upon  the  carnivorous 
Esquimaux  that  so  far  as  his  researches  went  they  were 
the  only  exception  to  the  fact  that  the  ancestors  of  every 
race  of  man  had  been  at  one  time  or  another  cannibals. 
The  occasional  eating  of  human  flesh  by  shipwrecked 
mariners  does  not  make  a  British  nation  a  race  of  canni- 
bals.* Skulls  have  been  disinterred  from  peat-bogs  and 
from  graves  believed  to  be  of  the  same  period  — which 
skulls  are  small  and  round,  with  massive  bones  above  the 
eyes  resembling  those  of  the  pigmy  race  of  modern  Lap- 
landers. The  skulls  of  the  bronze  and  iron  ages  found  in 
tlie  upper  layers  of  the  Danish  peat-bogs  are  both  longer 
and  larger,  and  belonged  no  doubt  to  a  race  that  invaded 
the  Baltic  regions  afterwards. 

We  have  the  means  at  hand  for  reconstructing  in  imagin- 
ation the  three  different  conditions  of  those  northern 
lands  during  their  inhabitation  by  three  successive  races. 
Taking  the  last  first  — in  Roman  times  the  Danish  isles 
were  covered  with  a  magnificent  forest  of  beech,  which  still 
exists.  This  is  the  tree  of  the  iron  age.  Its  logs  are 
abundant  in  the  topmost  layers  of  those  peat-bogs  which 
are  so  numerous  in  the  north,  and  in  which  the  skeletons 
of  lost  men  with  large  long  skulls  are  sometimes  found 
with  iron  arms  and  implements.  Beneath  these  top  layers 
lie  others  deeper  down,  but  how  much  older  we  know  not, 
the  logs  in  which  are  all  of  oak.  Oak  was  the  forest  of  the 
age  of  bronze.  In  the  peat-layers  no  iron  is  found,  and 
very  few  skeletons ;  because  the  people  of  that  age  burned 
their  dead  and  buried  their  ashes  in  urns  beneath  grave 
mounds.  How  many  thousands  of  years  this  age  of  oak 
woods  and  funereal  fires  stretched  backward  we  know  not. 
But  behind  it  lie  the  vaster  ages  of  the  stone  period.  The 
lowest  layers  of  peat  contain  neither  logs  of  beech  nor  logs 
of  oak;    their  embedded  trunks  are  chiefly  of  Scotch y?/'. 

*  Proc.  R.  Geog.  Soc,  Jan.  23,  1805.  Kane  and  others  have  testified 
to  the  improvidence  of  the  Esquimaux,  and  to  their  actually  starving  in 
midwinter  when  calm  weather  and  the  neap-tides  permit  the  sea  to  freeze 
over,  and  the  walrus  have  to  seek  water  iu  the  offing.  In  18.54-5  they 
were  compelled  to  eat  their  dogs,  but  not  a  case  of  cannibalism  is  known 
to  have  occurred  among  them. — But  see  facts  stated  in  Lecture  X. 


132  ON    THE    EARLY  [lECT. 

The  savages  of  those  remote  times  lived  in  the  true  Cira- 
liierlan  darkness  of  the  pines  ;  and  their  relics  are  the  long 
heaps  of  oyster-shells,  cockles,  and  other  edible  molluscs, 
plentifully  mixed  in  with  the  remains  of  quadrupeds,  Lirds 
and  fish  the  catalogue  of  which  I  have  already  given  you. 
Scattered  throughout  these  heaps  are  found  flint  knives 
and  instruments  of  bone  and  horn,  coarse  potsherds,  char- 
coal and  cinders,  but  not  a  trace  of  either  iron  or  bronze. 
Yet  the  polish  given  to  the  stone  knives  and  hatchets  show 
that  even  this  ancient  age  is  not  so  infinitely  remote  from 
ours  either  in  time  or  in  barbarism  as  that  of  the  peojjle 
of  the  diluvium  and  earlier  caves,  to  say  nothing  of  possible 
relics  in  the  tertiary  deposits.* 

See  how  all. civilization  is  relative.  As  we  look  down 
these  slopes  of  a  foregone  eternity  deeps  yawn  in  deeps,  in 
each  a  deeper  still. 

See  also  on  what  delicate  threads  of  evidence  such  demon- 
strations hang.  A  single  herring-bone  in  a  hundred  acres 
of  oyster-shells  — a  single  file-scratch  on  a  golden  torque 
I'ound  in  a  Druid  barrow,  tells  the  whole  story.  It  is  the 
master-trick  of  genuine  science ;  Agassiz  constructing  the 
whole  fish  from  a  single  scale ;  Leverrier  detecting  the 
skulking  Neptune  by  a  ripple  in  the  orbit  of  Uranus.  But, 
as  I  have  said  already,  the  method  must  be  sound,  the 
starting-point  well  known,  or  the  result  will  be  a  lie. 
What  I  have  given  you  this  evening  are  the  well-estab- 
lished and  universally  accepted  results  of  many  years  of 
careful  investigation  by  all  the  archeeologists  of  northern 
Europe,  led  by  such  masters  as  Worsse,  Nilsson,  Steenstrup 
and  Thompson,  Wilson  and  Lubbock  f  and  Busk,  and  with 
all  the  resources  of  geology  at  their  command.     Hundreds 

*  The  oyster  is  no  longer  to  be  found  in  the  Baltic  shores  ;  and  the 
periwinkle  {cardium  rduJp)  which  still  grows  there  is  a  variety  dwarfed  by 
the  brackishness  of  the  Baltic  water  since  the  ocean  was  shut  out  from  it 
by  the  gr;idual  rise  of  the  Scandinavian  jieninsula,  at  the  observed  raie  of 
two  or  three  inches  in  a  century.  The  absence  from  these  kitchen  heaps 
(if  the  niainnioth  and  rliinoceros  is  not  so  extraordinary  as  is  that  of  the 
aurochs  and  reindeer,  for  the  first  two  may  have  become  extinct  at  an  ear- 
lier period  in  this  latitude. 

t  See  Moriot's  .Mem.  in  Bull.  Soc.  Vaud,  vi.  "l<^nn.  Lausanne;  trans- 
lated in  8th  contrib.  Smith.  Inst.,  Washington,  and  abstracted  by  Lyell 
in  Ant.  Man,  p.  8. 


VI.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF    MAN.  133 

of  peat-bogs  have  been  searched,  tliousands  of  tumuli  have 
been  opened,  miles  of  shell-heaps  have  been  explored,  and 
that  beneath  the  jealous  criticism  of  all  Europe.  In  the 
sober  judgment  of  well-informed  men  this  much  may  be 
considered  settled  :  that  a  general  advance  in  civilization 
is  perceptible  in  the  past  history  of  man  during  what  may 
be  roughly  stated  as  the  stone,  the  bronze,  and  the  iron 
periods,  or,  if  you  prefer  to  call  them  so,  the  ages  of  tlie 
pine,  the  oak,  and  the  beech  woods  ;  that  the  men  of  the 
stone  age  were  savage  hunters  and  fishermen,  of  small 
stature  and  low  intellect;  that  the  men  of  the  bronze  age 
came  in  from  other  lands  bringing  with  them  the  know- 
ledge of  metallurgy,  a  taste  for  beauty  and  religious  feel- 
ings which  led  them  to  burn  their  dead;  and  that  the  men 
of  the  iron  age  were  of  still  another  race  and  country, 
large  of  stature,  long-headed  warriors,  with  iron  swords 
and  iron  ploughs,  builders  of  forts  and  ships,  restless  in- 
vaders, fond  of  state,  accumulators  of  property,  oppressors 
of  the  ancient  peoples,  and  the  natural  progenitors  of  the 
Berseckers  and  Jarl  kings  who  in  the  years  of  written 
history  conquered  the  west  and  south  of  Europe  and  laid 
the  basis  broad  for  the  eminent  civilization  of  our  modern 
times.* 

Will  any  one  be  so  far  influenced  by  the  prejudices  of 
scholastic  education  as  to  insist  on  a  reversal  of  this  order 
of  civil  development  ?  Will  any  one  maintain  that  man- 
kind, although  at  first  created  in  some  Eden  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels,  full  of  strength  and  beauty  and  endowed 
with  supernatural  intelligence,  lords  of  the  fowl  and  the 
brute,  tilling  the  soil  and  adorning  their  homes  with  beau- 
tiful works  of  art,  were  nevertheless  compelled  by  wrath 
divine  against  a  mythical  sin  to  wander  out  towards  the  in- 
hospitable north,  fell  into  want  and  misery  and  lost  their  high 
prerogatives,  aband'med  their  genei'ous  habits,  forgot  their 
faculties,  grew  savage,  and  became  at  last  the  wretched 
outcasts  whose  remains  are  mingled  with  the  bones  of  ex- 
tinct beasts  and  fishes  of  the  sea  on  the  Scandina^'ian 
shores  ?  Let  such  a  one  remember  that  so  far  as  our 
knowledge  of  history  goes,  so  far  as  all  the  facts  have  been 

*  Nat.  Hist.  Review,  1861,  &c.  And  two  volumes  published  1865, 
'Prehistoric  Times.'  Williams  and  Norgate,  Loud.  2  Vols.  See  'West- 
minster Review,'  July,  p.  126. 


134  ON    THE    EARLY  [lECT. 

collected  no  single  instances  of  such  a  degradation  can  be 
cited  in  support  of  such  a  theory.  Men,  so  far  as  we  know, 
have  always  increased  their  stock  of  knowledge  and  power 
instead  of  losing  it.  The  law  of  invasion  has  been  a  law 
of  development.  Races  have  always  elevated  and  ennobled 
each  other.  Their  wanderings  have  been  like  the  steps  of 
a  conflagration,  the  farther  it  goes  the  fiercer  it  burns. 
The  Persian  love  of  flowers  becomes  a  national  mania 
when  transplanted  to  the  icy  banks  of  the  Neva.  The 
smelting  of  copper  once  discovered  in  Armenia  could  no 
more  be  forgotten  in  Sweden  and  Norway  than  the  love 
of  Christ  can  become  extinct  in  California.  A  race  may 
die  out,  but  not  its  ideas ;  except  by  giving  place  to  truer 
truths  and  lovelier  lovelinesses.  .  Civilizations  to  be  edu- 
cated may  be  forced  to  make  the  tour  of  the  world ;  but 
they  are  not  rolling  stones  that  gather  no  moss.  The 
mariner's  needle  of  the  distant  east  may  have  to  wait  a 
thousand  years  before  it  finds  a  box  and  dial-plate  in  Italy; 
but  sooner  or  later  it  will  be  rectified  for  iron  ships  upon 
the  Atlantic.  It  maybe  the  year  of  our  Lord  1862  before 
Blake  and  Pumpelly  shall  teach  the  miners  of  Japan  how 
to  make  a  blast  with  their  own  gunpowder ;  but  do  you 
suppose  those  islanders  will  ever,  to  the  end  of  time  allow 
that  splendid  trick  to  be  again  forgotten  ?  Has  not  the 
wh(3le  movement  of  the  human  race  been  from  the  poles 
towards  the  equator  ?  From  ice  and  darkness  and  misery 
towards  the  sunlight  and  the  grape  ?  Have  we  a  single 
fact  to  show  that  the  movement  was  ever  in  the  other 
direction  ?  Science  cannot  resign  to  a  theological  con- 
jecture. Until  incontrovertible  facts  are  oSered  as  an 
argument  against  it  we  must  continue  in  our  reasonings 
to  follow  the  course  of  nature  as  we  know  it,  and  say  that 
bai'barism  everywhere  on  earth  preceded  civilization  ;  and 
accept  the  order  of  the  Danish  peat-bogs  as  the  symbol  of 
the  order  of  the  aboriginal  development  of  the  races  of 
mankind. 

'As  has  been  truly  observed,'  says  Mr  Lubbock  in  a 
speech  before  the  E.  Geographical  Society,*  '  man,  in  the 
earlier  times  of  which  we  have  any  relics,  appears  to  have 
been  not  only  a  savage,  but  a  savage  living  under  Arctic 

*  Jan.  23,  1865,  p.  61 


VI.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF    MAN.  185 

conditions/  Therefore  the  accounts  which  Kane  and  Rosa 
before  him  Lave  given  us  of  the  isolated  race  of  Esquimaux 
living  on  the  west  coast  of  Greenland  between  the  two 
great  prongs  of  the  Humboldt  glacier  and  so  completely- 
cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world  that  they  would  not  be- 
lieve Ross  when  he  said  he  had  come  to  them  from  the 
south — are  of  surpassing  interest  to  us.  These  Arctic 
Highlanders  contend  with  nature  for  a  chance  to  live  under 
the  extremest  disabihties.  They  have  no  boats,  and  there- 
fore cannot  follow  their  food  when  it  migrates.  They  have 
uo  fish-hooks,  and  therefore  cannot  live  on  fish.  They  have 
neither  bow  nor  arrow,  and  therefore  to  them  the  herds  of 
i-eindeer  which  range  unmolested  on  the  barren  uplands  at 
the  base  of  the  great  glaciers,  the  Sernik  Soak  or  great  Ice- 
wall  as  they  call  itjwhich  hems  them  in,  are  valueless.  ^They 
have  never  been  seen  to  partake  of  a  single  herb,  or  grass, 
or  berry  grown  upon  the  shore,'  says  Osborne,*  '  and  of 
vegetables  and  cereals  they  have  of  course  no  conception.* 
No  other  people  on  earth  are  known  to  be  so  entirely  carni- 
vorous. Kane  calls  them  an  expiring  race  ,  but  he  furnishes 
for  the  support  of  this  assertion  no  good  evidence.  As  Ross 
found  them  in  1 81 8  Kane  saw  them  in  1854 ;  only  they  had 
become  friendly  instead  of  being  hostile  to  their  visitors. 
Without  driftwood,  except  a  fragment  of  wreck  at  rare  in- 
tervals, and  with  only  a  small  supply  of  meteoric  iron  and 
a  few  wrecked  iron  hoops,  they  could  make  no  weapons 
but  bone  knives,  bone  harpoons,  and  bone  lances  with 
which  they  attack  and  kill  white  bears  and  seals  and  wal- 
ruses with  the  help  of  dogs.  With  nets  they  catch  in 
summer  vast  numbers  of  the  delicious  little  auk  or  penguin. 
They  have  in  use  the  identical  form  of  skin-scraping  tools 
which  have  been  found  so  abundantly  in  the  diluvial  and 
cave  deposits  of  Europe,  flat  on  one  side,  convex  on  the 
other,  round  at  one  end  and  pointed  at  the  other.  But 
as  supplies  of  meat  in  such  cold  countries  can  be  preserved 
for  a  long  time  we  may  find  in  these  carnivorous  habits  of 
the  present  Esquimaux  a  new  and  more  satisfactory  ex- 
planation of  the  vast  numbers  of  animal  skeletons  which 
are  found  in  the  old  caves,  if  we  suppose  the  ancient  in- 
habitants of  Europe  to  have  been  an  Arctic  and  carnivorous 

*  Jan.  23,  1865,  p.  50. 


loG  ON   THE    EARLY  [LECT. 

race.*  In  spite  of  all  the  disadvantaoes  of  their  situation, 
'  all  who  have  seen  these  people  describe  the  men  as  square 
built,  hearty  fellows,  deep-chested,  bass- voiced,  and  merry- 
hearted  ;  and  the  women,  good  souls,  as  tender  and  symp  i- 
thetic  in  their  quaint  way;  for  it^s  not  every  European  mother 
who  would  lend  a  nice  warm  babe  to  make  a  soft  pillow  for  a 
weary  traveller,  as  the  ladies  of  Etah  did  ;  and  fair  enoug-h 
to  win  the  hearts  of  some  on  board  of  the  Advance. 
Kane's  faithful  hunter  Hans  abandoned  him  for  love  of 
Shanghu^s  pretty  daughter,  who  had  nursed  him  when 
wounded  in  a  walrus  hunt.  These  people  live  as  far  north 
as  80°,  and  there  are  indications  that  Esquimaux  settlements 
may  even  be  found  at  the  very  pole.f 

In  strong  contrast  with  the  well-authenticated,  well-com- 
pacted, and  in  all  respects  sober  mass  of  information  which 
the  northern  antiquarians  have  put  at  our  disposal  stand 
the  isolated  and  ill-confirmed  reports  of  tertiary  men  such 
as  those  of  the  Abbe  Bourgeois  and  M.  Desnoyers  ;  and 
also  the  extraordinary  theories  of  enthusiasts  like  MM. 
Brouillet  and  Meillet,  based  upon — mistakes.  But  when 
w^o  remember  the  wild  conjectures  to  which  Phoenician 
letters  on  the  Grave-mound  amulet  in  western  Virginia 
gave  rise,  and  the  numerous  forgeries  of  Oriental  human 
relics  in  our  Western  States  which  have  been  repoi-ted  from 
time  to  time,  it  is  not  unuseful  to  observe  how  such  aber- 
rations may  be  possible  even  to  the  most  advanced  science 
of  Europe.  These  gentlemen  have  lately  published  an  ac- 
count of  certain  bone-caves  in  Poitou  J  from  which  they 
have  obtained  animal  remains    similar  to  those  found  in 

*  Kane  and  others  found  that  the  Esquimaux  kill  the  walrus  rapidly 
in  the  spring,  and  heap  their  bodies  on  the  shore,  piling  rocks  over  the 
hea)),  while  they  kill  more ;  but  like  all  savages,  they  are  so  thoughtless 
that  these  caches  putrif'y  in  the  summer  ;  for  they  never  seem  to  think  of 
making  them  in  the  ice-caves  of  the  adjacent  glaciers.  All  this  proves 
how  tenacious  human  life  is.  Kane  says  that  tiie  Arctic  winter  temper- 
ature stood  for  three  months  at— BO*^  to  75"  Fahrenheit.  But  liuman  life 
is  tenacious  of  the  earth  only  wlicre  animal  life  is  so  ;  the  enormous  walrus 
suckles  its  young  in  midwinter  at  77°  lat.  ;  so  do  the  herds  of  seals  feed- 
ing en  fish.  But  the  walrus  seems  to  feed  on  sea-weed  alone.  At  any 
rate  the  glacial  period  in  Europe  could  no  more  extirpate  the  cave-dwell- 
ing race  than  the  Arctic  winters  can  the  Esquimaux.  (Proc.  R.  Geog. 
Soc,  p.  65,  Jan.  U,  1865.) 

t  l{eiterated  by  Mr  C.  R.  Markham,  Proc.  Geog.  Soc,  Jan.  23,  1865. 

j  iSee  Westminster  Review,  July,  1865,  p.  121. 


VI."]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF    MAN.  137 

other  caverns  in  France,  scratched  and  marked  by  man. 
On  some  of  them  arc  Sanscrit  letters,  not  so  arranged 
however  as  to  be  pronounceable  in  words  or  syllables; 
and  two  of  them  are  scratched  upon  a  bone  representing 
a  phallus.  From  these  assumed  Sanscrit  letters  they  con- 
clude that  the  cave-people  of  France  were  emigrants  from 
Asia;  that  the  written  language  of  Arya  was  of  enormous 
antiquity ;  that  the  probable  date  of  the  relics  is  24,000 
years  B.C. ;  that  at  that  time  there  occurred  one  of  those 
periodical  cataclysms  which  desolate  the  earth  and  drive 
the  races  to  and  fro  ;  that  another,  taking  place  about 
14,000  B.C.,  was  the  debacle  produced  by  the  breaking  up 
of  the  antarctic  polar  ice ;  and  that  a  third  was  brought 
about  in  2350  B.C.  by  a  similar  breaking  up  of  the  ice- 
cope  around  the  Arctic  pole. 

Unfortunately  for  this  fine  theory  M.  Pictet  of  Geneva, 
pronounces  that  these  letters,  although  actually  Sanscrit, 
have  been  unskilfully  selected  from  one  of  the  more  modern 
forms  of  that  alphabet !  Setting  aside  however  the  stu- 
pidity of  the  forgery,  the  hypothesis  judged  upon  its  own 
merits,  melange  as  it  is  of  scientific  and  unscientific  ele- 
ments, can  hardly  hold  together  long  enough  for  us  to 
look  at  it.  We  might  almost  as  well  accept  the  Greek 
or  Hebrew  fables  of  a  universal  deluge;  a  phenomenon 
which  we  well  know  to  be  physically  impossible ;  for  the 
most  tremendous  rain-fall  does  not  exceed  six  inches  per 
hour  and  so  completely  desiccates  the  atmosphere  that  it. 
can  last  but  a  short  time;  whereas,  even  if  it  continued  in 
full  force  for  forty  days  and  nights  the  entire  amount 
would  only  be  some  6000  inches,  or  500  feet.  If  all  the 
aqueous  vapour  in  the  atmosphere  were  to  be  condensed  at 
once  it  could  not  elevate  the  sea  level  by  50  feet.  Nor  is 
modern  science  aware  of  the  existence  of  any  '  fountains,  of 
the  great  deep '  to  be  broken  up  to  supplement  the  defi- 
ciency. And  if,  as  some  have  been  willing  to  suppose,  the 
divine  hand  could  have  pressed  down  some  one  area  of  the 
crust  of  the  earth  so  as  to  permit  the  ocean  to  rush  in  and 
cover  it,  the  only  consequence  of  that  would  have  been  to 
drain  off  extensive  areas  elsewhere  and  thus  increase  the 
amount  of  land  left  dry. 

When  we  introduce  the  idea  of  cataclysms    therefore 
into  ethnology   we  must  carefully  limit  theiir  magnitude 


188  ON   THE    EARLY  [lECT. 

and  define  their  causes,  wholly  irrespective  of  the  fanciful 
or  allegorical  stones  of  the  ancient  poets ;  remembering 
moreover    how  the  ignorance  of  men  predisposes  them  to 
enlarge  and  dignify  their  personal  and  local  misadventures 
into  universal  disasters  to  the  human  race. 

Too  great  a  cataclysm  would  extirpate  nations  instead 
of  transferring  them  from  one  domain  to  another.  We 
must  lessen  the  cause  if  we  wish  to  produce  the  required 
effect.  Had  the  melting  of  the  Swiss  glaciers  been  the 
sudden  result  of  the  instantaneous  emergence  of  the  Sahara 
desert  and  the  immediate  creation  of  the  Sirocco  winds 
the  aboriginal  population  of  Europe  would  have  been 
swept  by  a  double  deluge  into  the  surrounding  seas.  But, 
as  we  know,  the  African  portion  of  the  ancient  Mediter- 
ranean was  cut  off  from  the  European  portion  of  it  so 
slowly  by  the  gradual  accumulation  of  gravel  bars  between 
the  Carthaginian  and  Cyrenian  coasts,  and  the  drying  up 
of  the  African  waters  must  have  been  a  process  so  de- 
liberate and  so  apart  from  any  noticeable  change  of  level  as 
to  land  and  sea,  that  the  melting  of  the  glaciers  may  have 
occupied  the  lifetime  of  a  generation  of  cave-dwellers,  and 
produced  no  change  of  cHmate  nor  of  soil  to  which  they 
were  not  amply  competent  to  adapt  themselves. 

Truth  needs  a  good  perspective.  A  hill  looks  always 
steeper  from  its  foot  or  from  its  summit  than  when  we 
are  upon  its  sides.  So  the  foreshortening  of  time,  re- 
garded with  a  backward  glance,  piles  up  the  thousand 
minor  incidents  of  some  slow  change  into  one  mighty 
crisis,  and  we  stand  amazed  and  terrified  at  the  possibilii^'' 
of  the  recurrence  in  our  day  of  what  were  it  really  to 
happen  would  no  more  trouble  us  than  any  of  the  ordi- 
nary common-place  experiences  of  life. 

It  is  not  a  general  deluge  then,  it  is  an  ordinary  inun- 
dation which  mankind  has  to  fear.  A  freshet,  as  we  call 
it,  a  famine,  a  pestilence,  a  murrain  in  their  flocks  and 
herds,  the  loss  of  timber  by  the  conflagrations  of  a  year  of 
drought — these  are  real  cataclysms  of  human  history ;  pro- 
ducing poverty  and  desperation,  exciting  insurrections 
against  established  governments,  bursting  into  a  blaze  of 
civil  war,  and  ending  with  the  expulsion  of  the  unfortunate 
to  seek  and  settle  upon  other  lands.  When  once  the  im- 
pulse is  established  in  some  distant  and  perhaps  unheard- 


VI.]  SOCIAL   LIFE    OF    MAN.  189 

of  portion  of  tlie  population  of  tlie  world  it  propagates 
itself  from  tribe  to  tribe  and  from  race  to  race,  those  be- 
hind precipitating  themselves  upon  those  in  front,  and  those 
attacking  having  the  usual  advantage  over  those  attacked, 
until  a  whole  continent  is  ethnologically  shifted  forward 
one  degree,  while  some  pre-eminently  vigorous  stock  may 
have  even  penetrated  through  half  of  the  moving  mass  and 
planted  itself  in  the  very  heart  of  an  entirely  alien  race. 
Such  was  the  case  of  the  hyperborean  Hungarians,  now 
surrounded  by  Sclavonians ;  and  such  was  every  way  the 
case  with  the  establishment  of  the  Vandals  in  northern 
Africa,  of  the  Saracens  in  Spain  and  southern  France,  of 
the  Turkomans  in  Greece,  and  of  the  Hyksos  in  ancient 
Egypt,  who  probably  crossed,  like  the  Turks  of  modern 
days,  the  whole  of  central  Asia,  from  the  northern  borders 
of  the  Chinese  empire. 

We  are  too  apt  to  regard  political  revolutions  as  the 
work  of  politicians.  Far  from  it.  Websters  and  Calhouns 
are  merely  maggots  in  the  fermenting  cheese,  bred  of  it, 
and  feeding  on  it,  but  not  much  more  than  illustrations  of 
its  liveliness.  We  must  find  the  causes  of  political  revo- 
lutions in  the  masses  of  the  people.  Fat  folks  love  ease 
and  hate  the  clash  of  arms.  The  wolves  of  the  Pyrenees 
descend  into  the  villages  not  until  they  are  gaunt-ribbed 
and  hollow-eyed  with  famine.  Throw  multitudes  out  of 
employment, — it  is  like  dipping  a  handful  of  cotton-wool 
into  sulphuric  acid ;  you  turn  it  into  gun-cotton,  and  any 
spark  will  explode  it  so  as  to  tear  your  hand  in  pieces. 
Thus  are  governments  destroyed. 

Look  at  any  good  chart  of  the  region  of  China  around 
the  capital  city  of  Pekin.  You  will  notice  there  the  course 
of  the  mightiest  river  in  •  the  world,  the  Yello^  Piver, 
Hoang-ho,  which  drains  the  central  parts  of  Asia.  You 
will  notice  also  a  range  of  mountains  (running  north  and 
south  directly  in  its  path  to  the  gulf  of  Pechele),  which  one 
of  our  geologists,  Mr  Pumpelly,  believes  to  have  been 
elevated  at  a  recent  date.  Through  this  range  the  river 
once  passed  directly  to  the  sea  by  what  is  now  the  bed  of 
another  river,  the  Pei-ho.  But  by  a  subsequent  re-eleva- 
tion of  this  mountain- chain  the  great  river,  turned  at  a  right 
angle  southward,  has  been  compelled  to  seek  along  the  west- 
em  foot  of  the  ridge    its  passage  350  miles  farther  south 


140  ON   THE    EARLY  [LECT. 

than  the  gap  tlirout^h  which  it  used  to  go  before.  Here  it 
turns  east,  goes  through,  aud  takes  its  unobstructed  way 
to  the  Vellow  Sea.  The  country  between  the  mountains 
and  the  sea  is  a  low  plain  traversed  by  numerous  ancient 
river-beds,  a  vast  delta  which  the  river  has  been  slowly 
and  steadily  reclaiming  from  the  ocean  for  no  one  knows 
how  long.  In  old  Chinese  municipal  records  many  of  the 
ancient  cities  which  now  stand  miles  and  even  leagues 
back  from  the  shore  are  described  as  seaports  with  good 
harbours  when  they  weie  first  built.  You  will  also  notice 
a  high  mountainous  promontory  projecting  from  the  middle 
of  the  delta  into  the  sea;  this  was  an  island  once.  The 
delta  has  been  formed  around  its  western  end  by  the  Yel- 
low River  changing  its  bed  alternately  to  the  right  and  to 
the  left  with  a  motion  precisely  like  that  of  the  head  of  a 
silkworm  when  spinning  its  cocoon.  At  the  last  meeting 
of  the  National  Academy  at  Northampton,  Mr  Pumpelly 
exhibited  a  chart  of  this  delta,  constructed  for  him  by  a 
learned  Chinese  scholar  whom  he  employed  to  search  the 
historical  records  of  the  province,  so  that  he  could  lay 
down  the  different  courses  which  the  mighty  stream  had 
taken  under  the  different  dynasties  of  Chinese  emperors, 
debouching  alternately  on  the  two  sides  of  the  central 
promontory.  There  is  a  Chinese  story,  that  after  a  deluge 
which  destroyed  mankind  the  great  king,  Yu,  first  em- 
peror of  the  first  dynasty,  B.C.  2100,  built  dykes  to  confine 
the  river  to  its  then  existing  bed.  This  care  of  the  Yellow 
River  became  the  hereditary  p#licy  of  all  succeeding  em- 
perors, a  sine  qua  non  for  any  dynasty  however  powerful. 
For,  as  the  river  filled  up  its  bed  until  its  sui"face  level 
stood  50  and  60,  and  as  the  Jesuits  say  even  90  feet  above 
the  surrounding  country,  the  least  remissness  threatened 
incredible  calamities.  The  delta  was  exceedingly  fertile ; 
its  population  was  the  densest  in  the  world;  its  level 
surface  could  afford  no  shelter  from  destruction  were  the 
banks  to  break ;  flight  might  save  individuals  but  in 
a  state  of  utter  destitution,  for  the  highlands  were  a  hun- 
dred miles  away ;  the  flocks  and  herds  would  surely  perish  ; 
and  the  river,  swollen  for  the  occasion,  would  plough  a 
broad,  deep  avenue  of  annihilation  through  the  sites  of 
towns  and  cities  to  its  new  mouth  upon  the  farther  side 
of  the  peninsula.     In  the  face  of  all  these  torrors,  and  they 


VI.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF   MAN.  141 

were  no  iraaginations,  for  they  had  been  repeatedly  realized, 
the  goverumeut  officials  would  periodically  grow  careless 
and  venal ;  the  misappropriation  to  themselves  of  taxes 
levied  to  keep  up  the  banks  allowed  those  banks  to  be- 
come slowly  weaker  at  every  point,  until  some  winter  of 
uncommon  snow  upon  the  mountains  would  be  followed 
by  a  late  spring  of  uncommon  heat ;  the  river  would  sud- 
denly overtop  its  insufficient  banks  and  spread  destruction 
over  the  whole  delta.  The  destruction  of  life  alone,  to  this 
over-populated  region,  although  appalling,  would  be  rather 
a  blessing  than  a  curse.  Enghsh  ships  have  been  known 
to  steam  up  all  the  way  from  Whampoa  to  Canton  through 
a  sheet  of  dead  bodies  like  drift  ice  after  such  an  inunda- 
tion of  the  Canton  river.  But  the  worst  terrors  of  the 
event  lay  in  the  millions  of  unburied,  puti'ifying  corpses 
covering  the  fields;  the  starving  myriads,  women  and 
children;  and  the  desperate  ferocity  of  armed  brigands, 
wifeless,  and  childless,  and  houseless,  and  landless,  and 
moneyless,  moving  from  the  scene  of  wrath  and  woe  out- 
ward in  all  directions  to  spread  disturbance  through 
surrounding  provinces.  To  suppress  these  armies  of  vaga- 
bonds armies  of  regulars  and  volunteers  had  to  be  em- 
ployed, which  only  increased  the  evils  of  the  land.  Con- 
tinual fighting  turned  the  robbers  into  warriors,  and  the 
imbecility  of  the  decaying  dynasty  which  had  been  the 
original  cause  of  failure  in  the  river-dykes,  became  now 
the  cause  of  its  military  overthrow.  The  records  of  China 
show  that  these  changes  in  the  course  of  the  Yellow  River, 
happening  at  regular  intervals  of  three  or  four  centuries, 
have  corresponded  with  as  many  imperial  revolutions.  We 
need  not  doubt  that  some  of  these  revolutions,  commenc- 
ing at  the  Yellow  Sea,  have  set  in  motion  waves  of  war  and 
wandering  which  never  stopped  until  they  broke  upon  the 
Atlantic  coast. 

But  we  are  not  to  think  that  a  millionth  part  of  the 
water  follows  the  wave.  The  form  advances,  but  the  equi- 
librium must  be  maintained.  Persons,  families,  armies 
migrate  ;  but  not  the  race.  Were  this  not  true  we  should 
see  to-day  the  cat-eyed  Mongol  tethering  his  horse  on  the 
lands  of  western  France.  Hang  up  a  row  of  ivory  balls ; 
strike  the  first  one ;  what  happens  ?  Do  they  all  rush 
forward  in  a  heap  ?     No,  the  last  one  only  flies ;  the  rest 


142  ON    THE    EARLY  [lECT. 

remain  in  place.  Thus  the  races  of  mankind  have  in  the 
main  retained  their  original  seats  by  virtue  of  an  elasticity 
inherent  in  all  organized  society  even  of  the  lowest  grade ; 
yet  propagating  tidal  waves  of  agriculture,  commerce, 
mechanics,  arts,  politics,  and  religion  from  east  to  west, 
fusing  the  different  races  practically  into  one. 

There  are  other  less  striking  but  more  powerful  phy- 
sical causes  of  the  out-wanderings  of  races;  such  as  the 
change  of  fertile  countries  into  deserts,  or  of  salubrious 
into  pestilential  air.  But  the  physical  sciences  have  not 
yet  made  these  causes  indisputably  clear,  and  history  has 
not  preserved  sufficiently  plain  records  to  enable  us  to 
judge  of  the  events.  Two  instances  of  such,  however, 
may  be  cited  as  well  worthy  of  consideration. 

There  is  a  range  of  desert  country  stretching  across  the 
map  of  the  old  world  from  the  Atlantic  shores  of  northern 
Africa,  by  Egypt  and  Arabia,  Persia  and  Independent 
Tartary  to  the  Chinese  Wall.  Its  drought  and  conse- 
quent sterility  connect  themselves  with  certain  grand  and 
constant  currents  of  the  atmosphere ;  as  also  do  those 
similar  but  more  restricted  deserts  lying  on  each  side  of 
the  Andes  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  in  America. 

But  the  removal  of  forests  also  has  much  to  do  with  the 
production  of  desert  lands ;  for  the  forests  modify  the 
rain-fall.  The  Kalahari  desert  in  southern  Africa  is  gain- 
ing in  extent,  its  rivers  drying  up,  as  Mr  James  F.  Wilson 
says,  because  of  the  indiscriminate  felling  of  timber  by  the 
natives  and  colonists  combined ;  the  land  once  occupied  by 
the  frugal,  thrifty  Hottentots  is  now  possessed  by  wasteful 
Caffros ;  and  iron  axes  are  in  everybody's  hand  where 
formerly  an  iron  axe  was  a  great  rarity.  Thus  even  an 
improvement  of  the  highest  value  in  the  arts  may  give  oc- 
casion for  a  fatal  wrong  to  a  portion  of  mankind. 

Mr  Cyril  Graham  has  shown  that  the  anciently  populous 
region  of  Hauran,  to  the  east  of  Damascus,  full  of  the  ruins 
of  great  cities,  became  the  uninhabitable  desert  it  now  is 
from  the  same  cause.  Generals  Humphreys  and  Abbot 
of  the  United  States  army  have  demonstrated  in  the  case 
of  the  Mississippi  what  Sir  Roderick  Murchison  asserts 
of  the  Volga,  that  its  volume  of  water  has  diminished  by 
the  settling  and  clearing  of  the  upper  country.  The 
French  revolution  let  loose  the  axe  in  the  Pyrenees,  and 


yi.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF    MAN.  143 

the  people  were  fast  turning  the  south  of  France  into  a 
desert,  when  Napoleon  restored  the  ancient  law  to  protect 
the  woods.  Colonel  Balfour  has  shown  how  the  replanting 
of  trees  in  India  has  re-opened  its  lost  springs.  Lord 
Stratford  de  RedclifFe  tells  us  that  after  speculators  had 
obtained  permission  to  cut  the  forest  of  Belgrade  the 
contract  had  to  be  annulled  ;  for  the  reservoirs  at  Con- 
stantinople in  consequence  began  to  fail.*  How  much  of 
the  spread  of  the  Arian  race  was  due  to  the  formation  of 
the  Persian  deserts,  and  that  of  the  Hebrew  race  to  the 
new  sterility"  of  Syria  and  Palestine,  are  curious  questions 
for  the  cultivators  of  almost  every  branch  of  physical 
science  to  take  some  part  in  settling  satisfactorily. 

There  is  still  another  class  of  causes  affecting  the  migra- 
tion of  races  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  which  it  is  only 
needful  to  refer  to  the  alleged  destruction  of  the  Indians 
of  the  United  States  by  a  universal  pestilence  previous 
to  the  appearance  of  the  English  colonists  at  Plymouth 
Rock  ;  and  to  that  less  apocryphal  destruction  of  the  same 
ill-fated  race  subsequently  by  syphilis  and  smallpox  and 
scarlet  fever  and  fire-water  imported  among  the  tribes 
from  the  homesteads  of  the  whites. 

But  as  nature  never  repeats  herself,  so  every  migration 
that  has  ever  taken  place  in  history,  or  before  history,  had 
features  of  its  own ;  varying  as  it  did  from  aU  others  in  its 
force  and  velocity,  in  its  brilliancy,  in  its  scope  and  out- 
spread, in  its  influence  for  good  or  evil,  and  therefore  in 
its  consequences  at  the  present  day. 

From  the  background  of  written  history,  two  great  mi- 
grations stand  out  pre-eminent — one  which  afi'ected  the 
religious  development  of  the  human  mind,    and  one,  in- 

*  Proc.  R.  Geog.  Soc,  p.  106.  May,  1865.  Dr  Livingstone,  however,  has 
refused  his  assent  to  this  explanation.  He  vouches,  indeed,  for  the  facts, 
and  gives  instances  of  the  drought  of  springs  in  his  own  garden,  and  names 
old  water-beds,  now  dry,  stiU  called  '  rivers '  by  the  natives;  but  he  ascribed 
the  phenomenon  to  the  rise  of  the  western  edge  of  the  continent  to  a 
higher  level  above  the  sea,  and  to  the  production  of  fissures,  like  that  of 
the  Victoria  Falls,  draining  interior  lakes,  changing  their  levels,  and 
making  humid  winds  dry.  Dr  Kirk  objects  that  wood  in  Central  Africa 
is  abundant  on  the  Zambesi,  and  that  there  is  an  average  amount  of  popu- 
lation, but  insufficient  to  extirpate  the  forest,  only  using  wood  for  fuel. 
He  is,  therefore,  inclined  to  ascribe  the  dryness  ul'  Southern  as  well  as 
Northern  Africa  to  atmospheric  currents. 


144  ON    THE    EARLY  [lECT 

augiiratiug  the  new  era  of  universal  liberty  and  Christian 
philanthropy  : — the  migration  of  the  Abrahamic  race  into 
Palestine,  two  thousand  years  before  the  advent  of  Christ; 
and  the  emigration  of  Anglo-Saxon  colonists  to  the  ISew 
World  and  to  Australia.  Of  the  latter  it  is  not  here  the 
place  to  speak;  but  the  other  is  more  closely  connected 
with  our  subject  as  it  relates  directly  to  the  earliest  civil- 
ization of  the  globe.  I  do  not  myself  believe  with  entire 
confidence  in  the  personal  existence  of  the  Jewish  patriarchs. 
For  you  will  find  in  the  old  Hindoo  mythologies  the  names 
of  Abram,  Isaac,  and  Judah  i-anged  in  a  similar  order  and 
connection.  Brahma's  son  Ikswaka  was  the  great-grand- 
father of  Yadu.*  The  Hebrews  of  Palestine  were  but  a 
single  twig  of  that  wide-spreadiug  branch  of  the  Shemitic 
tree  which  had  its  original  seats  in  central  Asia,  and  mi- 
grating southward  and  westward  over  Persia,  Mesopotamia, 
Arabia,  and  Syria  entered  Egypt  under  the  name  of 
Hyksos.  We  read  in  Genesis  that  Abram  came  from  Ur  of 
the  Chaldees,  which  all  the  Fathers  have  considered  to  be 
Edessa  or  Orfa  in  the  western  division  of  northern  Meso- 
potamia, nine  miles  from  the  Euphrates,t  but  which  the 
excavations  of  the  British  consul,  Mr  Taylor,  have  shown 
to  be  in  the  south,  near  the  junction  of  the  Tigris  and 
Euphrates. J 

We  are  also  told  in  the  book  of  Numbers  (xiii.  22)  that 
Hebron,  the  city  of  the  Hebrews,  and  the  head-quarters  of 
the  Abrahamites,  was  built  by  them  seven  years  before 
Zoan,  or  Tanis,  in  Egypt,  where  are  now  to  be  seen  the 
masterpieces  of  Hyksos  architectui-e. 

You  remember  that  Isaac  had  a  legendary  brother  Esau, 
the  father  of  the  Arabian  nomades. 

We  must  not  judge  this  people  by  the  Jew  sutlers  in 
the  army  of  the  Potomac ;  nor  by  the  three-crowned  liat- 
pedlers,  crying  '  O'Clo' ! '    along  the   slums  and  stews  of 

*  Icswaca,  Sarya  (the  sun),  Soma  or  Chandra  (the  moon),  Yadu  (Judah), 
Chahuman,  Pramara,  &c.  Ant.  Radjpoot  MSS.  A  Sanscrit  edition  ijives 
Icshwaca,  Soma,  Yadu,  Pramara,  &c.     MSS.  Index,  H.  20. 

f  Callirrhoe  in  Pliny,  v.  21 ;  Antiochia  ;  Justinopolis  ;  and  supposed 
to  be  the  ark  (ereck)  l.-s  of  Gen.  x  10.  Two  days'  journey  S.E.  of  it  is 
Charraj  (Harran),the  [ruv  (llarnui)  i^"  of  Gen.  xi.  31,  xii.  5,  xxvii.  43, 
xxviii.  10,  xxix.  4;  2  Kings  xix.  12;  Isaiah  xxxvii.  12,  and  Ezekiel 
xxvii.  23.     Here  Crassus  was  defeated. 

X  Proe.  Geog.  Soc.  1865,  Jan.  9,  p.  39 


71.]  SOCIAL   LIFE    OF   MAN.  146 

London.  We  must  seek  it  in  its  native  place,  where  it  is 
a  king.  Not  crouclied  against  the  walls  of  tlie  mosque  of 
Omar  at  Jerusalem,  but  on  horseback  in  the  desert,  swing- 
ing the  scimitar  or  hurling  the  lance  of  the  Saracen ;  or 
in  the  professor's  chair  at  Cordova,  translating,  expound- 
ing, and  enlarging  all  the  philosophies  of  foregoing  ages. 
We  must  regard  those  fine  processions  of  tall,  grave,  long- 
robed  merchants  entering  the  villages  of  Liberia  and  Sierra 
Leone;  each  man  a  judge  of  righteousness,  incapable  of 
levity  or  meanness,  noble  in  speech  and  conduct,  and  propa- 
gating the  faith  of  Islam  to-day  with  the  same  zeal  with 
which  their  fathers  fought  for  it  a  thousand  years  ago. 
Study  the  Arabs  in  the  Indian  Ocean,  on  the  islands  of 
Java  and  Sumatra,  surrounded  by  other  races — Malays, 
Hindoos,  Negroes,  and  Chinese  — and  you  will  not  only 
acknowledge  their  superior  blood,  but  remark  their  con- 
sciousness of  this  superiority.  To  this  Arab  or  typical 
Hebrew  Shemite  the  old  prophecy  gives  the  tent;  and  the 
Hamite  and  the  Japhetite  are  to  come  into  it  to  serve  him. 
Arabs  are  the  commercial  masters  of  the  tropics.  Hebrews 
rule  the  politics  of  every  government  in  Christendom  by 
slips  of  paper  from  their  counting-rooms.  They  have 
stamped  their  religious  conceptions  upon  the  written  his- 
toiy  of  half  the  globe.  They  have  afforded  to  the  world 
its  noblest  thinkers,  its  grandest  poets,  its  most  fiery 
orators,  its  sweetest  musicians,  its  largest-minded  mer- 
chants, and  its  most  absolute  martyrs  to  patriotism  and 
conscience.  Whence  came  then  this  grand  race,  and 
where  did  it  make  its  first  appearance  in  history  ? 

The  recent  discoveries  of  M.  Mariette,  perhaps  the  ablest 
and  most  successful  of  all  explorers  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nile,  have  conferred  upon  ethnology  two  inestimable  boons. 
First,  he  has  opened  up  a  world  of  monuments  relating  to 
a  part  of  Egyptian  history  about  which  we  knew  nothing, 
and  the  most  interesting  part  of  all — the  earhest.  And 
secondly,  he  has  dispelled  the  last  shades  of  doubt 
which  hung  about  the  authenticity  of  Manetho's  lists  of 
kings.  His  discovery  of  the  monuments  of  the  early 
Memphite  dynasties  will  become  important  to  us  here- 
after when  we  discuss  the  architectural  ideas  of  the  ear- 
liest men. 

But  the  second  point  is  of  importance  here.     For  M. 

10 


146  ON    THE    EARLY  [l.ECT. 

Mariette,  by  placing  it  beyond  dispute  that  the  list  of 
Egyptian  dynasties  and  kings  which  Manetho  gives  us  is 
not  only  genuine  but  constructed  in  the  ordinary  manner 
in  which  all  governmental  or  official  lists  are  constituted, 
viz.  by  taking  only  the  legitimate  sovereigns  of  the  whole 
realm,  and  each  one  only  for  that  time  dui-ing  which  he 
reigned  the  acknowledged  legal  monarch  — has  put  an  end 
to  all  attempts  to  shorten  the  Egyptian  chronology  upon 
the  supposition  that  many  of  Manetho's  kings  and  even 
dynasties  were  contemporaneous  — attempts  made  of 
course  solely  in  the  interest  of  the  Rabbinical  age  of  the 
world.  The  6th  dynasty,  for  instance,  it  was  long  supposed 
reigned  at  Elephantine  in  southern  Egypt  while  the  7th 
was  reigning  with  independent  powers  at  Memphis  in  the 
north.  But  M.  Mariette  has  disinterred  monuments  of 
both  those  dynasties  on  the  sites  of  both  their  capitals,  viz. 
at  Elephantine  in  Upper  Egypt,  and  at  Sakkara  near  Mem- 
phis at  the  head  of  the  Delta.  Each  dynasty  therefore 
must  have  ruled  over  the  whole  kingdom ;  and  conse- 
quently the  two  dynasties  could  not  have  been  contempo- 
raneous. 

In  like  manner  the  13th  dynasty  which  had  its  seat 
at  Thebes  must  have  preceded  the  14th  dynasty  which 
had  its  seat  at  Xois,  because  from  the  colossal  statues  of 
its  kings  discovered  at  San  near  Xois  it  must  have  reigned 
there  also. 

For  1700  years  before  Christ,  that  is,  from  the  end  of 
the  17th  dynasty,  that  of  the  Hyksos,  onwards,  the  his- 
tory of  Eg3'pt  is  well  known ;  and  in  all  this  length  of  re- 
cord Manetho  has  been  found  correct ;  he  has  not  doubled 
any  reign  by  inserting  a  contemporaneous  ruler  before  or 
after  it.  We  have  no  right  therefore  to  suspect  him  of 
having  committed  this  blunder  in  the  earlier  portion  of  his 
list.  But  such  a  blunder  could  only  be  intentional ;  and 
he  could  have  had  no  prejudice  to  serve  by  such  a  wilful 
sacrifice  of  truth  in  favour  of  a  long  chronology.  His 
reputation  is  but  just  recovering  from  the  load  of  obloquy 
which  the  Jews  and  their  disciples  the  Protestant  chrono- 
logists  have  heaped  upon  it,  for  no  better  reason  than  that 
they  think  they  must  make  the  history  of  all  nations  upon 
earth  draw  up  its  knees  to  lie  within  the  child^s  cradle  of 
the   Hebrew  scriptures.       Father  Jerome  tells  us  how  the 


VI.]  SOCIAL   LIFE   OF   MAN.  147 

Eabbis  of  Tiberias  doctored  these  Hebrew  scriptures 
by  slipping  back  the  birth  of  the  firstborn  of  each  of  the 
antediluvian  patriarchs  one  hundred  years  upon  his 
father's  life,  in  order  to  bring  the  birth  of  Christ  at  the 
year  4000  of  the  world's  creation,  instead  of  at  the  year 
6000.  He  tells  us  that  their  motive  was  to  take  the  millen- 
nium argument  out  of  the  Christians'  mouths.  For  the 
early  Christians  claimed  against  the  Jews  that  Jesus  must 
be  the  Messiah  because  he  had  come  according  to 
prophecy  current  among  the  Jews  themselves  at  the  dawn 
of  the  great  Sabbath,  the  seven  thousandth  year.  Wlien 
we  reject  Manetho^s  list  we  do  it  in  behalf  of  the  Jews 
who  chuckle  at  our  simplicity;  and  we  do  it  also  in  the 
face  of  the  old  Greek  version  of  the  Hebrew  scriptures,  the 
chronology  of  which  is  2000  years  longer  than  that  of  King 
James'  translation,  showing  us  how  the  trick  of  the  Jews 
was  played. 

One  of  the  most  satisfactory  evidences  we  have  that 
Manetho  did  not  double  either  his  dynasties  or  his  reigns 
is  the  fact  that  the  hieroglyphic  lists  of  kings,  especi- 
ally the  new  list  lately  discovered  at  Abydos,  contain  a 
multitude  of  kings'  names  which  do  not  appear  on 
Manetho's  list  at  all.*  During  the  rule  of  those  fierce 
strangers,  the  Hyksos,  there  were  several  native  dynasties 
maintaining  a  precarious  existence  in  various  sections  of  the 
valle}'  of  the  Nile  ;  but  the  great  historian,  true  to  his 
principle  that  kings  de  facto  were  the  only  kings  de  jure, 
refuses  to  insert  in  his  list  the  names  of  these  little  native 
pretenders;  he  engrosses  only  the  names  of  the  Hyksos 
monarchs  although  foreigners  and  tyrants  in  his  list  of  the 
17th  dynasty,  because  they  really  reigned. f 

A  learned  lady  of  England  has  exerted  herself  to  prove 

•  Consult  not  only  Manetho,  but  Eratosthenes,  and  the  tablets  of 
Abydos,  of  Thebes,  and  of  Sakkara,  and  the  papyrus  of  Turin.  The  grand 
temple  at  Abydos  just  discovered  by  Marietta,  presents  a  new  list, 
analogous  to  those  we  have  already  had,  but  admirably  preserved.  It  is 
of  the  time  of  Sethos  I.,  1400  B.C.  Sethos  has  selected  77  names  of  pre- 
decessors to  make  up  his  list,  which  ends  like  those  of  Manetho,  and  the 
Turin  papyrus  with  Menes  and  Atothis.  Touthmes  III.  (1500  B.C.) 
makes  offerings  to  61  predecessors,  on  the  tablet  in  the  Imperial  Library 
at  Paris  (Kenan). 

t  Renan,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  April,  1865,  p.  664.  Mariette's 
Apergu. 


148  ON   THE    EARLY  [lECT. 

that  these  mysterious  intruders  into  Egyptian  history,  the 
Hyksos,  were  the  same  people  who  are  called  in  the  early 
Hebrew  writings  the  Susim  (Hak-Sus,  meaning  '  king  of 
the  Susim'),  a  mighty  nation  first  heard  of  as  inhabit- 
ing the  Hauran  country,  south  of  Damascus,  and  east  of 
the  Upper  Jordan.  Whether  this  be  true  or  not,  the  first 
appearance  of  these  nomades  seems  to  be  described  upon 
the  walls  of  the  tombs  of  Beni  Hassan,  built  under  the 
12th  dynasty,  nearly  3000  years  B.C.  There  the  traveller 
beholds  for  the  first  time  the  pictures  of  processions  of 
patriarchs  with  great  eyes  and  aquiline  noses,*  coming  with 
their  wives  and  little  ones,  their  poor  utensils  and  instru- 
ments of  music,  to  request  the  governor  of  Egypt  to  give 
them  lands  to  dwell  in,  to  escape  a  famine  in  their  own. 
It  is  the  story  of  Abraham,  Jacob,  and  Joseph  told  by 
Egyptians  ;  the  first  pacific  modest  appearance  of  that  ter- 
rible race  which  was  to  throw  all  Asia  afterwards  into  dis- 
order, take  possession  of  the  land  that  succoured  it  and 
finally  give  the  human  race  the  grandest,  the  holiest  and 
the  most  enduring  part  of  its  history. 

The  distinguished  Egyptologist,  Dr  Brugsch,  and  an 
advocate  for  the  authenticity  of  the  Mosaic  account  of  the 
Exodus,  states  the  accordance  of  the  monuments  with  that 
account  in  a  much  better  and  more  conclusive  manner  than 
Hengstenberg  has  done,  and  introduces  into  its  scenery 
fresher  tints.  One  chapter  of  his  charming  little  book 
Aus  dem  Orient  is  entitled  '  Moses  and  the  Monuments,' 
and  in  this  chapter  he  resumes  all  that  the  hieroglyphics 
are  as  yet  known  to  teach  about  the  Hebrews.  Tanis,  the 
Hyksos  capital,  called  hieroglyphically  hauar,  Avaris,  was 
besieged  and  taken  by  the  first  king  of  the  18th  dynasty. 
Its  Pharaohs  eiFected  the  conquest  of  Asia,  planting  their 
furthest  triumphal  obelisks  on  the  borders  of  Armenia,  and 
returned  with  armies  of  captives  to  build  innumerable 
monuments  along  both  banks  of  the  Nile.    Pictures  remain 

*  But  the  Hyksos  are  described  as  red  haired  and  blue  eyed,  which 
gives  origin  to  the  theory  that  they  were  the  earliest  appearance  of  the 
Gothic  or  Scandinavian  race  of  the  Iron  age.  Renan  remarks  that  the 
Hyksos  monuments  arc  at  San,  Tanis,  or  Zoan,  o^.'^s*?  -jyii,  which  was 
founded  seven  years  after  Hebron,  according  to  Numbers  xiii.  22. 
Hebron  was  held  by  1?T.^.  (auimn)  '?»  (ssi)  and  ''?\rt  (glmi)  the  sona 
(■'iS-')  of  Anak  (pJJ'n).     Here  again  we  have  Susim. 


TI.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF   MAN.  149 

to  US  of  these  captives  drawing  water,  treading  clay, 
spreading  out  and  piling  up  their  tales  of  bricks  to  build  a 
temple  with,  under  the  supervision  of  Egyptian  figures 
armed  with  rods.  The  19th  dynasty  had  for  its  first  three 
kings,  Ramses  I.,  Seti  I.,  and  Ramses  II.,  the  great 
Sesostris,  who  reigned  66  years,  and  pushed  his  conquests 
north,  east,  south,  and  west.  To  guard  his  frontier  against 
the  Hittites  of  Palestine  he  forced  his  native  Hyksos  serfs 
and  foreign  military  slaves  to  build  a  chain  of  forts  across 
the  isthmus  of  Suez,  of  which  the  principal  were  Ramses 
and  Pithom  (Pachtura,  Pelusium),  names  mentioned  in 
Exodus  i.  ii.  as  built  by  Hebrews  under  the  tyrannical 
oppression  of  a  Pharaoh  (Theban  per-aa,  Memphite 
pliEK-AO,  means  high  house,  or  sublime  porte),  who  knew 
not  Joseph.  One  of  the  papyri  of  the  British  Museum,  of 
the  date  of  Ramses  II.  (1250 — ISOOb.c,  Anastasi,  iii.  p.  1) 
is  a  description,  by  a  scribe  named  Pinebsa  to  his  master 
Amenemaput,  of  the  aspect  of  things  in  and  around  the 
new  city  Ramses, — of  the  entrance  into  it  of  the  great 
Pharaoh, — and  of  the  petitions  for  relief  against  their 
overseers,  "which  they  thronged  about  him  to  present. 
Another  papyrus  reads  :  '  Sum  of  buildings  12,  by  people 
brought  from  their  residences  to  make  brick  in  the  city ; 
they  made  their  tale  of  bricks  daily,  without  stopping 
until  finished.  Thus  the  task  given  me  by  my  master  has 
been  accomplished.''  These  conscripts  were  not  Egyptians ; 
they  were  called  apuru,  Hebrews.  They  ai-e  often  men- 
tioned on  the  stones  and  in  papyri  as  at  work,  guarded  by 
^lazai,  the  Libynn  gendarmerie  of  Egypt.  In  a  papyrus  of 
the  Ley  den  Museum,  an  employe  of  Ramses  II.  Kauitzir, 
reports  to  his  upper  scribe  Bakenptah  :  '  May  my  lord  be 
pleased  with  my  execution  of  his  assigned  work,  as  follows  : 
distribution  of  food  to  the  soldiers,  and  to  the  Hebrews 
dragging  stones  for  the  great  city  Ramses  Meiamoun  the 
truth-loving,  under  the  oversight  of  police  chief  Amena- 
man.  I  gave  them  food  monthly,  according  to  my  master^s 
excellent  arrangement.^  A  second  papyrus  in  the  same 
museum  is  written  by  one  Keniaman  to  his  superior,  the 
Katena  or  general  Hui :  '  I  have  fulfilled  my  lord^s  orders 
to  give  food  to  the  soldiers  as  well  as  to  the  Hebrews  who 
drag  stones,  &c.^  In  the  rock  valley  Hamamat,  along 
which  the  great  commercial  route  of  Egypt  from  Coptos 


160  ON   THE    EARLY  [lKCT. 

on  the  Nile  to  Berenice  on  the  Red  Sea,  is  an  inscription 
describing  the  quarry  work  done  by  9000  men,  among 
whom  was  a  squad  of  800  Hebrews  under  escort  of  Mazai 
police,  who  had  bi'ought  the  poor  devils  probably  all  the 
way  from  Goshen  in  the  Delta. 

Now  if  the  Hebrews^  story  of  their  own  wrongs  and  of 
their  deliverance  is  to  be  believed,  we  must  suppose  Joseph 
to  have  come  down  into  Egypt  under  one  of  the  Hyksos 
kings  of  the  17th  dynasty,  a  Shemite  like  himself.  When 
the  native  Pharaohs  suppressed  the  Hyksos  government 
they  oppressed  the  Hyksos  colonists  who  remained  forming 
perhaps  nearly  the  whole  population  of  the  eastern  wing  of 
the  Delta.  Moses  was  born  say  in  the  sixth  year  of 
Ramses  II.,  300  years  after  Joseph's  day.  In  his  tenth 
year  Ramses  entered  his  new  city,  built  with  Hebrew 
hands.  Add  to  the  remaining  60  years  of  his  reign  the 
20  years  which  his  son  Menephtha  reigned,  and  we  get 
the  80  years  of  age  which  Moses  had  when  he  led  his 
people  forth. 

Ramses  II.,  like  Cgesar  and  Napoleon  afterwards,  was 
always  in  trouble,  sitting  on  a  throne  planted  -over  mines 
which  any  moment  might  explode.  He  made  an  '  extradi- 
tion treaty '  with  Chetasar,  king  of  the  Hittites,  who  bound 
himself  to  return  to  Egypt  all  fugitive  Hebi'ews  found  in 
Palestine ;  and  the  same  fearful  policy  might  have  actually 
gone  the  length  of  an  edict  of  universal  male  Hebrew  child- 
murder  in  view  of  the  eventuality  which  the  Hebrew 
Scripture  thus  expresses  :  '  for  when  a  war  arises,  they  may 
join  our  enemies  and  fight  against  us,  and  escape  out  of  the 
land.'  Ramses  and  his  successor  added  to  this  fierce 
oppression  a  religious  seduction;  they  instituted  an 
ostentatious  worship  of  the  sun-god  Baal  of  the  Shemite 
race.  Ramses  presented  his  own  colossus  (now  in  the 
Berlin  Museum)  to  the  temple  of  the  sun  in  Zoan,  where, 
says  the  poet  of  Psalms  Ixxviii.  12,  43,  Jehovah  (by  Moses) 
'  showed  his  wonders.'  Menephtha  built  no  temples,  but 
inscribed  his  own  name  on  his  fathers'  monuments  with 
the  title  '  Worshipper  of  Sutech-Baal  of  Tanis,'  and  cut  the 
image  of  Baal  on  the  back  of  one  of  his  own  colossi  with 
the  figure  of  his  son  worshipping  before  it. 

The  name  Moses  is  now  identified  with  the  Egyptian 
MAS  or  MASSU,  meaning  '  the  child,'  a  name  borne  by  many 


VI.]  SOCIAL   LIFE   OP   MAN.  151 

personages  of  that  age,  one  of  whom  is  entitled  on  a  monu- 
ment of  the  reign  of  !Menephtha  '  Viceroy  of  Ethiopia ; ' 
and  this  inscription  probably  gave  rise  to  the  assertion  of 
Josephus  that  Moses,  when  a  young  man,  led  an  Egyptian 
army  into  Ethiopia  to  besiege  Meroe  and  married  the 
princess  Tharbe  out  of  gratitude  for  her  assistance  in 
entering  that  city.  The  Hebrew  story  makes  him  the 
adopted  son  of  Eamses*  daughter,  and  says  that  he  was 
learned  in  all  the  customs  of  the  Egyptians,  as  in  fact 
might  be  inferred  from  the  Hebrew  ceremonial  which 
bears  his  name,  and  the  restricted  monotheism  which 
idealizes  all  the  writings  going  by  his  name ;  for  in  the 
roll  of  the  dead  deposited  in  Egyptian  graves  God  is  not 
named,  but  only  designated  as  the  nuk  pu  nuk,  '  I  Am 
what  I  Am,'  precisely  the  title  "^  Jehovah'  of  the  Pentateuch. 

At  this  point,  however,  all  alliance  between  the  monu- 
ments and  the  Mosaic  story  ceases.  Several  centuries 
elapse  before  the  Sheshonk  of  the  22nd  dynasty  appears 
in  Hebrew  history  as  the  Shishak  who  besieged  Jerusalem. 
Of  the  Exodus,  of  the  wanderings  in  the  wilderness,  of  the 
settlement  in  Palestine  the  monuments  say  not  one  word. 
Coming  directly  from  the  land  of  hieroglyphic  writing  upon 
stone,  and  learned  in  the  art, — leading  a  people  who  had 
not  only  had  memorial  sculpture  before  their  eyes  all  their 
lifetime,  but  had  themselves  built  up  the  walls  and  set  the 
statues,  steles,  and  obelisks  which  bore  descriptions  of 
every  public  event,  is  it  not  an  incredible  supposition  that 
Moses  should  have  wrought  such  wonders,  traversed  such 
a  length  of  roiite,  encamped  beneath  the  granite  cliffs  of  the 
peninsula,  aud  in  the  defiles  of  Mount  Hor  so  many  years, 
without  leaving  a  trace  of  his  existence,  a  line  of  writing, 
a  letter,  a  scratch  to  authenticate  his  story,  not  even  the 
two  tablets  on  which  he  is  said  to  have  inscribed  his  deca- 
logue !  There  are  thousands  of  rude  figures  in  the  val- 
ley Mokatteb,  and  in  other  ravines  descending  from 
Mount  Serbal,  and  they  have  been  studied  carefully  by  a 
multitude  of  scholars,  under  the  strongest  temptation  to 
make  them  out  Mosaic,  but  it  has  not  been  done.  No 
Egyptologist  can  speak  with  patience  of  Mr  Forster's 
book. 

Our  faith  is  always  in  degrees.  We  believe  in  Alfred 
more    than    in   Arthur, — more   in   the    Gracchi    than    in 


152  ON   THE    EAELT  [lECT. 

Eomulus  and  Eemus.  Time  and  distance  liave  gi-eat 
dominion  over  historic  faitli.  Alexander  is  to  us  a  real 
personage ;  we  believe  in  Socrates  not  quite  so  clearly,  but 
yet  more  confidently  tlian  in  Lycurgus ;  in  Lycurgus  moi-e 
than  in  Cadmus ;  in  Cadmus  more  than  in  Hercules ;  and 
not  at  all  in  Jupiter  and  Semele.  But  time  is  but  a  single 
element  in  the  constitution  of  the  credence  that  we  give  to 
past  events,  and  not  at  all  the  most  important  one ;  other- 
wise Ramses  II.  would  not  be  to  the  mind  of  scholars  of 
the  present  day  as  solid  a  reality  as  Caesar  or  Napoleon. 

Time  goes  for  nothing  when  we  have  contemjwranj  docu- 
ments. These  are  the  legitimate  masters  of  our  faith.  In 
their  absence  there  must  always  be  more  or  less  of  anarchy 
in  history,  more  or  less  doubt  mixed  with  our  faith. 
Eamses  as  Sesostris,  that  is,  before  his  monuments  were 
discovered,  was  the  fanciful  hero  of  a  Greek  fable  — quite 
on  a  par  with  Hercules.  The  traveller  who  deciphers 
Bonivard's  signature  on  the  stone  column  to  which  he  was 
chained  in  the  Chateau  of  Chillon, — or  the  half-finished 
couplet  of  Byron  at  the  top  of  the  Giralda  of  Seville, — who 
stands  alone  in  the  desert  of  Murgab,  before  the  marble 
fragment  which  bears  the  winged  relief  of  the  old  Persian 
ting  and  reads  the  words :  '  I  am  Cyrus  the  king,  the 
Achsemenian,^ — or  who  catches  a  glimpse  of  some  noble 
record  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  such  as  that  of  the  an- 
cient governor  of  Lycopolis  :  '  Never  have  I  taken  the  child 
from  the  mother^s  breast,  nor  the  poor  man  from  the  side 
of  his  wife,' — he  feels  the  full  meaning  of  the  term  contem- 
jporary  testim-ony  hy  means  of  momiments. 

But  there  is  a  third  element  of  history  which  regulates 
the  other  two,  and  by  which  we  criticise  and  limit  the 
value  of  contemporary  monuments, — it  is  the  vraisemblable, 
A  tale  told  by  the  mountain  (tel)  itself  cannot  be  believed 
unless  it  represents  events  as  flowing  in  that  self-same  cur- 
rent of  the  commovpJace  in  which  our  lives  flow  on.  The  es- 
sential sameness  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  mankind — 
the  long-enduring  unchangeableness  of  the  social  life  of 
man — the  steadfastness  of  man's  relationships  to  nature — 
must  not  be  violated,  or  we  cannot  believe.  Even  when 
Sesostris  was  a  myth  like  Hercules  there  was  this  dift'er- 
ence :  the  story  of  Sesostris  was  extraordinary  but  proba- 
ble were  there   but  records  left  ;    but  that  of  Hercules 


VI.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF    MAN.  153 

would  be  incredible  however  many  monuments  were  left. 

Now,  judging  the  Mosaic  story  by  these  canons,  in  which 
all  agree,  we  find  it  of  an  age  far  antedating  all  precise 
history, — we  find  it  utterly  unsupported  by  contemporary 
monumental  records, — and  we  feel  it  to  be  a  splendid  series 
of  incredibilities  from  first  to  last.  His  birth,  his  miracles, 
his  exodus,  his  converse  with  Jehovah,  and  his  mysterious 
disappearance, — all  stamp  the  history  with  an  indelible 
character  of  myth  which  not  a  single  discovery  of  any 
branch  of  science  has  yet  repaid  the  endeavour  to  efiace. 

In  less  degree — in  a  far  less  degree — but  still  in  essen- 
tially the  same  mode  the  legends  of  the  Jews  of  a  date 
previous  to  the  reign  of  Solomon  are  utterly  unhistorical, 
although  the  stories  of  the  Judges  are  probable  enough. 
Nothing  prevents  us  from  identifying  the  Hebrews  of  the 
monarchy  as  descendants  of  the  Hyksos  race,  nor  from 
supposing  that  the  Mosaic  records  were  inventions  of  a 
later  age,  based  on  a  mixture  of  Hyksos  traditions,  Arabian 
poetry,  Zoroastrian  mythology  and  genuine  Egyptian  and 
Assyrian  monumental  history.  Nothing  prevents  us  from 
concluding  that  the  Egyptian  inscriptions  record  merely  a 
local  and  temporary  eddy  through  the  isthmus  of  Suez  of 
that  master  flood  of  migration  which,  starting  from  the 
centres  of  Arianism  about  the  Hindu  Koosh  in  Afghan- 
istan, and  allying  itself  originally  with  the  movements  of 
the  Children  of  the  Sun  and  the  Children  of  the  Moon  in 
north-western  India,  spread  itself  over  Palestine  and 
Syria  and  Arabia,  and  then  through  the  dispersion  of  the 
Jews  into  all  the  countries  of  the  modern  world  ;  a  migra- 
tion which,  as  I  have  said,  is  the  most  important  of  all  that 
have  occurred  since  man  was  placed  by  his  Creator  on  the 
earth. 

But  in  an  anthropological  sense  the  history  of  the  He- 
brews is  of  far  inferior  importance  when  compared  with  that 
of  the  early  Egyptians,  for  of  this  last  we  have  a  world  of 
contemporary  documents  and  therefore  the  most  precise 
information.  It  is  to  the  earliest  monuments  of  Egypt 
that  we  must  turn  for  pictures  of  the  social  state  of  a 
race  of  men  standing  in  the  boldest  contrast  with  all  that 
we  know  by  inference  from  the  relics  of  the  diluvium  and 
the  cave  deposits  and  the  palafittes  of  the  social  state  of 
fe,r  more  ancient  and  more  savage  races,  living  under  less 


154 


ON  THE  EARLY 


[lect. 


CHART  OF  EGYPTIAN  HISTORY. 


Ancient  Empire: 
Thinis  Dynasty 
Thinis 
Memphis 
Memphis 
Memphis 
Ele^ihantine 
Memphis 
Memphis 
Heliopolis 
Heliopolis 


lasted  1940  years  (?  Manetbo.) 
Menes. ")  Pyramid  of  Cochom6. 

)►  Monuments  rare.    769  years. 

Cheops.     Pyramids.    Ait  Siuai  (Wady  Magara). 

Tombs  at  Saqqara. 
Nitocris ;  Apappus. 

rMomiments  wanting.     436  years. 

I  Egypt  perhaps  overrun  by  toreigners. 

I  The  end  of  the  old    writing,   religion, 

L     civil  service,  &c. 


Middle  Empire  :  lasted  1361  years  (?  Manetho). 


Thebes 

Thebes 

Thebes 

Xosi 

Entef 

Entef 

San 


XI.  Entef,  Mentouhotep.     i 
XII.  Osortasen,  Ameiiemha.  j 

XIII.  Nofrehotep,  Sebekhotep 

XIV.  Nothing  known  of  tliis 

XV.     

XVI 


Beni  Hassan.  Lake  Moeris. 
60  kings,  463  years. 
At  its  close  commenced 
invasions  of  the   Hyksos,   lasting    400   years ; 
ended  with  the  establishment  of  the  Hyksos. 


XVII.  Saites  (Hyksos).     Colossi.     Sphinxes. 


Classic  Empire. 


Thebes 


XVIII. 


Thebes  XIX. 

Thebes  XX. 

Thebes;  San.  XXI. 
Tell-basta  XXII. 
San  XXII  I. 


Sa'is 
Sais 


XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 


Amosis  (Ahmes).  Amenophis.  Thoutmes.  Queei 
Hatasou.  Thebes  illustrated.  Asia  conquered 
Sun  worship  introduced  by  Khou-en-aten. 

Ramses  I.   Seti.  Sesostris  (Pentaour).  Menephtha 

Ramses  III.  (Sea  fight.)     Asiatic  influences. 

Priest  dynasty  at  Thebes.  Manetbo's  kings  at  San. 

Sheshonk  (takes  Jerusalem):  Egypt  a  part  of  Asia. 

Twelve  barons  divide  Lower  Egypt.  Upper  Egypt 
becomes  a  province  of  Soudan. 

Bocchoris,  reigning  six  years,  the  only  king. 

Sabacon(Cush)  conquers  Egypt.  50 years.  Tahraka. 

Psammiticus,  the  Libyan  ?  Greek  mercenaries. 
Periplus  of  Africa.    Canal  of  Suez  reattempted. 


Persian,   Greek,  and  Roman  Empires. 


XXVII. 

Sais 

XXVIII. 

Mendes 

XXIX. 

Sebennytes 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

Alexandria 

XXX II. 

Alexandria 

XXXIII. 

Alexandria 

XXXIV. 

Caujbyses.     Darius.     121  years. 
Wars  witii  the  Persians. 
Wars  with  the  Persians. 

Nectanebo  1.     Last  king  expelled  by  the  Persiani 
Darius  III.     Six  years. 
Alexander  I.,  II. 

Ptolemies,  Cleopatra,  Berenice,  Arsinoe. 
Roman  proconsuls. 


VI.]  SOCIAL    LIFE    OF    MAN.  156 

favourable  auspices  for  health  of  body,  peace  of  mind,  and 
growth  in  huroan  culture.  This  picture  I  will  now  endea- 
vour to  place  before  your  eyes. 

But  to  make  the  matter  as  plain  aa  possible  I  must  put 
it  in  a  graphical  form  and  show  by  a  chronological  chart 
the  true  relationship  in  point  of  time  between  the  Hyksos 
episode  and  the  beginnings  of  Egyptian  civilization.  This 
chart  will  show  the  four  great  empires  of  Egypt,  beginning 
with  that  of  the  Pyramids  and  ancient  tombs  of  Memphis, 
5000  years  B.C.  And  you  will  notice  at  a  glance  that  the 
17th  dynasty,  that  of  the  Hyksos,  comes  midway  in  the 
column  between  the  time  of  that  ancient  empire  with  its 
oldest  of  earthly  monuments  and  our  own  day.  Perliaps 
3300  years  preceded  the  fall  of  the  Hyksos  dynasty,  and 
3500  years  have  succeeded  it. 

Such  has  been  the  history  of  Egypt.  Seven  thousand 
years  have  passed  since  the  fourth  king  of  the  first  dynasty 
built  the  first  pyramid  of  Cochome,  the  first  which  greets 
the  traveller  going  forth  into  the  desert  from  the  gates  of 
Cairo.*  Yet,  even  then,  Egypt  was  an  old  country;  its 
people  civilized ;  its  architecture  grand  in  idea  and  perfect 
in  execution ;  its  statuary  as  natural  as  any  group  of 
Rogers'  statuettes;  its  language  not  only  formed  but  re- 
duced to  writing  ;  its  agricultural  life  rich  with  oxen,  asses, 
dogs  and  monkeys,  antelopes  and  gazelles,  geese,  ducks 
and  swans  and  slaves  of  Numidia.  But  the  horse  and  the 
camel  of  Arabia  were  wanting ;  they  knew  nothing  either 
of  the  elephant  or  the  giraffe  of  Africa ;  the  sheep  of  Eu- 
rope and  the  poultry  of  China  are  nowhere  to  be  seen ;  nor 
had  the  house  cat  yet  assumed  her  witch-role  on  the  hearth. 

*  In  bis  paper  on  the  A.ntiquity  of  Man,  read  before  the  last  meeting 
of  the  Ethnological  Section  of  tlie  British  Association,  meeting  at  Dundee, 
August,  1867,  Mr  C'rawfurd,  who  is  a  believer  in  the  multiple  origin  uf 
our  race,  adopts  ChampoUeon's  date  for  the  beginning  of  Egyptian  history, 
9000  years  before  Christ,  and  argues  for  an  immensely  older  history,  upon 
the  ground  that  language,  civilization,  letters,  arts,  agriculture,  and  the 
domestication  of  animals  are  slow  processes.  Too  much  stress,  however, 
must  not  be  laid  upon  this  consideration,  for  wheu  genius  speaks  the  times 
obey  and  hasten  to  realize  its  propositions,  and  to  fuitil  its  prophecies. 
Sir  J.  Lubbock,  although  an  advocate  of  the  unity  of  origin,  agreed  with 
him  upon  the  point  of  the  antiquity  of  Egyptian  civilization,  and  the 
necessity  for  previous  ages  of  emergence  from  the  savage  life  of  the  cave- 
dwellers. 


166  ON  THE   EARLY  [lECT. 

But  these  people  at  the  beginning  of  written  history  had 
no  ships  for  commerce,  and  could  not  have  introduced 
what  existed  around  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  or 
along  the  Indian  Ocean.  But  what  did  then  exist  ?  The 
rest  of  mankind  seem  to  have  been  savages,  without  cats 
also.  Probably  neither  the  horse,  nor  camel,  nor  elephant, 
nor  sheep,  nor  pheasant  had  yet  been  tamed,  at  all  events 
not  within  reasonable  reach  of  these  rich  farmers  of  the 
Nile.  That  they  enjoyed  a  happy,  peaceful,  and  sometimes 
a  jolly  life  is  easy  to  see,  for  the  walls  of  the  Memphite 
tombs  are  covered  with  pictures  of  feasts,  and  games,  and 
dances,  and  boat  tournaments,  such  as  amuse  the  populace 
of  Paris  in  July  ;  there  you  see  poets  chanting  verses,  and 
dancing  girls  with  hair  tressed  up  with  plates  of  gold. 
But  you  may  look  around  in  vain  for  the  symbols  of  any 
kind  of  warfare.  Not  a  trace  of  military  life  is  visible  on 
any  monument  previous  to  the  12th  dynasty  :  and  very 
little  trace  of  religion.  How  the  dynasties  were  founded, 
or  how  they  were  overthrown,  or  changed,  we  cannot 
learn ;  nor  how  the  priests,  if  any  then  existed,  turned  an 
honest  penny.  The  deity  had  neither  name  nor  image. 
Osiris  was  unknown.  The  dog  Anubis  is  the  only  guardian 
of  these  primeval  mansions  of  the  dead,  the  first  deity  as 
the  first  friend  of  man.  We  can  make  out  only  the  signs 
of  a  purely  patriarchal  civilization  in  a  land  of  peace  and 
plenty.  Each  tomb  is  built  by  each  farmer  for  his  eternal 
residence.  His  efiigy  is  seen  in  it,  surrounded  by  the 
pictures  of  his  wife,  his  children,  his  servants,  his  scribes, 
his  dogs  and  green  monkeys  and  his  household  goods. 
And  all  this  3000  years  before  Solomon  built  his  temple  on 
Mount  Moriah,  or  the  Assyrian  his  palace  on  the  platform 
of  Koujunjik. 

We  may  speculate  upon  the  assertion  that  the  Egyptians 
of  the  delta  of  the  Nile  sailed  up  the  Adriatic  and  settled 
the  delta  of  the  Po,  then  crossed  the  Alps  and  descended 
to  settle  anew  upon  the  delta  of  the  Rhine,  from  whence 
they  seized  on  all  the  smaller  deltas  of  the  British  islands. 
We  have  nothing  but  fancy  to  guide  us  in  determining 
how  far  the  older  civilization  of  the  Egyptians  modified  the 
influence  of  the  great  emigrant  race — the  Phoenician — in 
forming  the  civilization  of  Europe.  We  have  no  sufficient 
demonstration  of  any  such  influence  radiating  from  ancient 


VI.  SOCIAL    LIFE    OP    MAN.  157 

Egypt,  except  in  matters  of  religion,  and  through  the  in- 
termediation of  other  races,  of  which  more  hereafter.  For 
the  present  let  me  leave  impressed  upon  your  imagina- 
tions one  clear  image — the  contrast,  the  marvellous  con- 
trast between  the  two  pictures  I  have  drawn.  On  the 
one  hand  we  have  this  picture  of  peace  and  plenty  among 
the  ancient  landholders  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  On  the 
other  hand  we  have  that  picture  of  want  and  warfare 
dominating  the  life  of  the  wretched  savages  in  the  pine- 
woods  of  Scandinavia,  and  standing  for  the  condition  of 
the  human  race  or  rather  of  all  the  other  human  races 
existing  at  that  ancient  epoch  outside  of  the  valley  of  the 
Sphinx. 

Yet  such  a  contrast  still  exists  in  all  its  grim  integ-rity 
upon  the  earth.  Compare  the  palaces  and  parks  of  Eng- 
land and  New  England  with  the  wigwams  of  the  west  or 
the  negro  cabins  of  the  south ;  with  the  utter  homelessness 
of  the  Hottentot  and  Australian  in  the  one  hemis])here,  or 
the  wretched  reflection  of  primeval  barbarism  among  ^'■les 
miser ables''''  in  Paris  or  in  London.  And  so  the  world 
hoards  up  its  old  letters,  although  they  can  only  be  re-read 
with  shudderinsjs  and  tears. 


LECTURE  VII. 

ON  LANGUAGE  AS  A  TEST  OF  RACE. 

The  subject  of  tlie  language  of  man  will  engross  our 
attention  this  evening. 

Those  who  believed  in  the  origin  of  all  the  human  races 
from  a  single  pair  found  the  question  of  the  probable  lan- 
guage spoken  by  that  pair  and  their  immediate  descendants 
considerably  simplified.  The  fathers  of  the  Church  took 
for  granted  that  the  language  of  the  oldest  writings  which 
the  Church  accepted  as  sacred  and  divine  was  the  language 
in  which  Adam  and  Eve  addressed  each  other  in  Paradise. 
When  the  critics  of  a  later  age  began  to  find  reasons  for 
believing  that  the  Mosaic  records  had  been  compiled  from 
the  most  worthy  scraps  of  the  most  ancient  written  tradi- 
tions, it  only  strengthened  the  claims  of  the  Hebrew  to  be 
the  language  of  the  antediluvian  patriarchs. 

But  when  the  science  of  comparative  philology  was  dis- 
covered the  special  students  of  certain  special  languages, 
in  their  enthusiastic  devotion  to  their  special  studies, 
began  to  put  in  other  claims  for  this  high  honour  and  to 
dispute  the  pre-eminence  of  the  Hebrew,  contending  that  it 
must  have  suffered  so  many  changes  no  one  could  tell  what 
it  had  been  in  the  beginning. 

As  the  learned  world  woke  up  to  an  appreciation  of  the 
beautiful  structure  and  great  antiquity  of  the   Sanscrit 
many  were  disposed  to   consider  that  sacred  language  of 
southern  Asia  the  mother  language  of  mankind. 

Then  came  the  Egyptologists  with  their  monumental 
letters  and  improved  chronology,  antedating  that  of  the 
Hebrews  by  several  thousands  of  years.  They  proved  that 
the  Coptic  language,  although  allied  to  the  Hebrew,  was  in 
fact  the  language  of  the  Pharaohs  before  Abram  had  come 


ON  LANGUAGE  AS  A  TEST  OF  RACE.  159 

out  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees.     Coptic  must  therefore  have 
been  the  .-^peech  of  Paradise. 

There  were  soane  to  demand  for  the  Armenian  language 
the  credit  of  being  the  oldest  in  the  world.  And  there  have 
been  most  learned  Welshmen  to  parade  the  fact  that  their 
British  mother  tongue  could  afford  a  reasonable  etymology 
for  every  one  of  its  own  words  in  proof  that  it  alone  could 
be  the  aboriginal  speech  of  the  world. 

But  the  progress  of  the  science  of  comparative  philology 
has  extinguished   one  by  one,  all  these  absurd  pretensions 
even  without  the  necessity  of  a  reference  to  the  goodness 
of  the  foundation  on  which  they  rested,  viz.  the  truth  of 
the  legend  of  a  Paradise  and  a  first  human  pair. 

But  although  the  science  of  comparative  philology  has 
been  able  to  extingmsh  the  claims  set  up  by  each  individual 
language  to  be  that  which  the  earliest  people  on  the  earth 
spoke,  it  has  not  been  able,  on  the  other  hand,  to  point 
out  what  was  the  original  language.  We  are  just  as  far 
removed  to-day  from  knowing  that  as  we  ever  were. 

Comparative  philology  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
attractive  of  all  the  modern  sciences.  It 'is  fresh  and 
vigorous.  It  has  an  immense  coterie  of  disciples  and  many 
masters.  It  has  conquered  a  large  territory  and  set  up  a 
splendid  throne.  It  makes  advances  every  year.  It  has 
established  laws  which  are  unshakable.  It  is  a  world  of 
truth ;  no  one  doubts  it.  It  is,  in  some  respects,  fully  the 
equal  of  the  other  sciences.  But  in  saying  thus  much  we 
have  said  all  we  dare  to  say. 

In  other  and  very  important  respects,  the  science  of  com- 
parative philology  is  young  and  raw,  undiscipHned  and 
disorganized ;  or  rather,  rising  as  it  has  like  a  Phoenix 
from  the  ashes  of  its  predecessor  out  of  the  cinders  of  what 
was  known  in  the  middle  ages  as  the  science  of  Language, 
it  still  retains,  involved  in  its  constitution,  quantities  of 
that  unorganized  magma  all  the  elements  of  which  it  is 
bound  some  day  to  reduce  to  perfect  order.  In  this 
respect  it  is  far  behind  the  so-called  physical  and  natural 
history  sciences.  Some  of  its  most  important  principles 
have  yet  to  be  settled.  Some  of  its  grandest  questions 
have  hardly  been  announced.  Its  doctors  still  pursue  the 
most  opposite  methods.  Its  books  are  not  only  full  of 
irreconcilable  contradictions;    they  do  not  yet  state  any 


160  ON    LANGUAGE.  [lECT. 

grand  body  of  universally  accepted  facts  out  of  which  fresh 
investigations  can  deduce  acceptable  generalizations. 

The  true  principle  for  a  correct  classificaticm  of  the  lan- 
guages for  instance  has  not  yet  been  established.  Philo- 
logists have  indeed  worked  out  a  number  of  fine  groups, 
and  settled  to  some  extent  their  boundaries.  They  can 
talk  to  you  about  the  Indo- Germanic  family,  and  show  you 
how  it  is  broadly  distinguished  from  the  Shemitic  family 
on  the  one  side,  and  from  the  Tartar  family  on  the  other. 
They  can  separate  the  Teutonic  languages  from  the  Celtic 
and  classic  groups  on  the  one  side,  and  from  the  Slavonic 
group  on  the  other.  They  can  distinguish  the  southern 
or  Teutonic  from  the  northern  Gothic  or  Scandinavian 
sub-families.  They  can  designate  seven  or  eight  chief 
subdivisions  of  a  single  language  like  the  French.  They 
can  go  much  farther  even  than  that,  and  count  up  its  patois 
or  local  variations  until  they  reach  an  incredible  number.* 
And  all  this  amounts  to  something  certainly.  It  repre- 
sents a  vast  amount  of  hard  work.  But  it  does  not  repre- 
sent as  yet  a  law  of  classificatiun.  There  is  no  established 
and  accepted  classification  of  the  four  or  five  thousand  lan- 
guages of  the  earth.  There  is  even  the  greatest  difference 
of  opinion  among  philologists  as  to  the  true  principles 
upon  which  we  are  to  decide  whether  a  language  actually 
belongs  and  why  it  must  be  considered  as  belonging  to 
one  group  rather  than  to  another.  Some  base  the  classifi- 
cation upon  the  grammar :  others  upon  the  dictionary. 
The  science  of  comparative  philology  is  now  in  the  same 
'  state  in  which  comparative  zoology  was  before  the  days  of 
Cuvier  when  the  bats  were  classed  among  the  birds 
because  they  lived  by  flying  in  the  air;  and  cetaceans, 
whales,  seals,  walruses,  &c.  with  fishes  although  they 
breathed  the  air  and  suckled  their  young;  and  lemurs 
with  squirrels  instead  of  with  the  monkeys  where  they 
actually  belong. 

And,  in  fact,  we  may  as  well  say  at  the  outset  that  all  the 
great  questions  which  have  come  up  for  settlement  in  the 
other  older  and  maturer  sciences  come  up  again  in  some 
analogous  form  for  settlement  in  this  young  raw  science  of 

*  See  the  variations  on  the  words  'deux  fils'in  the  Transactions  of  the 
Antiquarian  Society  of  France  (C.  9.  13). 


711.]  AS    A    TEST    OF    RACE.  161 

comparative  philology.  And  how  indeed  could  it  happen 
otherwise  ?  For  the  things  which  we  call  words  are 
organic  things  like  animals  and  vegetables.  They  have 
roots  and  branches.  They  grow  and  decay.  They  have 
fixed  laws  to  govern  their  existence,  like  all  other  beings. 
They  do  not  leap  from  our  mouths  helter-skelter,  as  the 
toads  and  jewels  dropped  from  the  mouths  of  the  daughters 
of  the  cruel  stepmother  in  the  fairy  tale.  They  are  not 
accidentally  created.  We  are  not  their  voluntary  creators. 
They  breed  in  us  and  issue  from  us,  not  only  from  our  hps 
but  from  our  brains,  by  laws  as  regular  and  permanent  as 
those  which  govern  the  conception  and  birth  of  broods  of 
fishes,  birds  or  serpents.  Language  therefore  must  be  a 
department  of  natural  history.  New  expressions  or  idioms 
appear  upon  the  face  of  human  society  just  as  new  species 
and  varieties  of  animals  and  vegetables  have  successively 
made  their  appearance  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth  and 
in  the  waters  of  the  sea.  And  words  and  languages  perish 
and  are  preserved  in  the  history  of  literature  precisely  like 
those  fossil  forms  of  extinct  plants  and  animals  which  we 
study  in  the  geological  deposits  of  the  past. 

With  the  great  fundamental  principles  of  natural  history 
therefore  which  we  have  had  before  us  already  more  than 
once  during  the  course  of  these  lectures  we  have  again 
to  deal  to-night.  Philology  finds  the  same  lions  in 
its  path  to  the  House  Beautiful  which  have  frightened 
the  other  sciences   that  have  preceded  it  in  pilgrimage. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  great  possibility  of  spon- 
taneous production,  or  equivocal  generation  as  the  natur- 
alists call  it.  Mr  Crosse  took  certain  mineral  matter, 
boxed  it  up  carefully  so  as  to  exclude  the  air,  heated  it  so 
as  to  destroy  all  germs  of  previous  life,  and  sent  for  many 
weeks  a  perpetual  current  of  galvanism  through  it  so  as 
to  arouse  the  dormant  powers  of  organic  life.  The  result 
was,  as  he  declares,  that  living  insects  made  their  appearance 
in  great  numbers.  But  the  rest  of  the  world  doubts  the 
fact ;  a  few  only  believe.  Now  what  say  philologists  as  to 
the  possibility  of  a  similarly  spontaneous  origin  of  a  word 
out  of  the  raw  stuff"  of  thought  ?  Some  affirm  that  new 
words  are  continually  appearing  in  all  languages  like  Mr 
Cressets  acari.  Others,  on  the  contrary,  stand  by  the  old 
doctrine    that  like  breeds   like    and  that  all   living  forms 


162  ON    LANGUAGE  [lEOT. 

must  come  from  germs  or  living  cells  which  are  already 
organized  nuclei  of  vital  forces,  or  rather,  in  the  language 
of  the  schoolmen,  vital  forms,  formce  forvKintes.  Such 
philologists  affirm  therefore  the  necessary  previous  exist- 
ence of  linguistic  roots,  and  believe  that  all  words  must  be 
developed  out  of  roots ;  that  the  great  business  of  phi- 
lologists is  to  investigate  roots  in  languages,  to  restrict  the 
number  of  these  roots  in  any  language  to  the  smallest 
quantity,  and  to  compare  the  roots  of  different  languages 
together  so  as  to  obtain  a  true  classification.  A  school  of 
oologists  exists  therefore  as  really  in  the  science  of  com- 
parative philology,  as  in  that  of  comparative  zoology. 

But  when  you  come  to  consider  these  roots  or  germs  of 
words  you  find  nothing  in  the  shape  of  a  settled  principle. 
Some  philologists  consider  all  the  roots  of  words  as  originally 
verbal,  such  as  :  to  be,  to  go,  to  strike,  to  cut,  to  breathe. 
Others  restrict  this  verbal  character  to  a. few  roots,  and  call  all 
the  rest  nouns  out  of  which  verbs  have  been  made.  Some 
consider  the  root  of  a  word  reached  when  it  is  reduced  to 
three  letters ;  others  despise  roots  which  consist  of  more 
than  two  letters.  But  nothing  tells  more  plainly  against 
the  existence  of  any  well-made-out  law  than  the  different 
number  of  roots  to  which  difierent  philologues  reduce  a 
given  language.  The  Sanscrit  for  instance  is  said  to  have 
500  or  600  roots.  But  Kraitsir,  before  he  died,  had  re- 
duced the  number,  in  his  own  opinion,  to  a  little  over  200. 
Haldeman  thinks  no  language  can  show  more  than  300. 

But  the  great  question  is  about  the  spontaneous  gener- 
ation of  these  germs,  or  roots.  Then,  at  what  age  in  the 
history  of  man  did  they  appear  ?  Were  there  a  certain 
number  of  aboriginal  roots  spoken  by  the  tertiary,  post- 
tei'tiary,  or  stone-age  men  ?  or  have  word-roots  been 
making  their  appearance  all  down  through  history,  one 
at  a  time,  or  in  groups,  sufficiently  numerous  to  institute 
new  branches  of  language,  or  new  languages  ?  Then  again, 
by  what  law  of  life  did  the  roots  of  words  get  created  at 
first?  or  by  what  law  do  they  continue  to  get  created  ? 
And  if  there  be  such  a  law  of  life  for  these  word-roots 
does  it  include  in  itself  a  law  of  permanence,  and  a  law  of 
universality,  i.  e.  does  it  secure  the  creation  of  a  given 
root- word  in  all  languages ;  and  then,  does  it  secure  the 
continued  existence  of  that  root-word  to  the  end  of  time  ? 


VII.]     .  AS   A    TEST   OF    RACE.  163 

Or,  on  the  contrary,  is  there  a  law  of  change,  by  which  no 
original  root-word  has  been  able  to  maintain  its  integrity, 
but  has  fallen  from  its  first  estate  and  become  depraved  ? 
or,  to  state  in  other  words  this  last  question,  do  we  find 
raging  in  this  science  of  comparative  philology  the  same 
warfare  respecting  '  a  law  of  development  ■"  by  which  one 
word-form-species  gradually  changes  to  another,  and  so 
one  language  to  another,  by  old  roots  dying  out  and  new 
roots  striking  in  to  the  common  soil  ? 

Let  me  take  up  two  or  three  only  of  these  questions,  and 
state  what  I  think  is  wanting  to  the  science  of  philology 
to  place  it  on  a  footing  to  do  something  for  us  in  our  in- 
vestigations into  the  early  history  of  the  human  races  and 
their  migrations.  For^  at  present,  in  spite  of  the  high 
pretensions  of  its  disciples,  I  do  not  think  that  we  get  any 
ethnological  light  from  Philology  wortb  speaking  of ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  I  think  that  in  the  position  which  the 
science  occupies  it  casts  a  deep -shadow  ofobscurit}  upon 
the  whole  subject  of  the  human  races.  Whatever  else 
therefore  T  must  hurry  over  or  omit  to-night  for  want  of 
time,  or  to  avoid  confusing  your  attention,  this  one  thing 
I  wish  to  make  clear,  my  reasons  for  believing  that  the 
method  of  philologists  must  be  amended  and  to  a  great 
extent  re-modelled  before  we  can  get  rid  of  some  of  the 
grossest  errors  in  ethnology  or  really  obtain  a  complete 
view  of  the  relations  which  the  human  races  hold  to  one 
another  and  to  the  present  state  of  things. 

The  origin  of  language  may  be  regarded  either,  1.  as  a 
supernatural  revelation  of  a  language  already  perfect  to 
the  first  human  beings;  or,  2.  as  a  power  of  language  given 
to  the  first  human  beings  in  addition  to  all  their  other  pe- 
culiar faculties  as  human  beings ;  or,  3.  as  merely  a  superior 
human  development  of  a  general  power  of  language  (or 
faculty  of  expression)  possessed  by  the  whole  animal  world, 
inherent  in  fact  in  the  constitution  of  all  animated  beings 
as  well  as  man. 

The  first  of  these  modes  of  conceiving  the  possible  origin 
of  language  as  a  divine  revelation  was  almost  universally 
adopted  by  heathen  philosophers  and  Christian  theologians 
to  a  very  recent  date,  and  is  still  indulged  by  those  whio 
believe  in  Adam  and  Eve  in  Paradise.  Although  the  most 
natural  way  of  understanding  the  old  legend  that  Jehovah 


164  ON    LANGUAGE  [lECT. 

brought  to  Adam  all  the  birds  and  beasts  and  creeping 
things  that  he  might  give  to  each  of  them  its  name  would  be 
to  suppose  existing  in  Adam's  mental  constitution  a  myste- 
rious faculty  of  representing  what  he  saw  and  knew  by 
audible  sounds  intelligible  to  his  wife  and  children. 
Science,  however,  can  take  no  note  of  the  supernatural 
unless  it  becomes  natural  and  takes  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  nature.  Nature  itself  is  too  supernatural  to  require  any 
additions  from  the  realms  of  human  ignorance.  And 
moreover,  if  there  were  more  aboriginal  human  races  than 
one  there  would  be  needed  as  many  repetitions  of  the 
same  revelation  of  language ;  unless  to  each  race  a  different 
language  were  revealed ;  in  which  case  the  confusion  of 
tongues  at  the  building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  would  have 
been  anticipated. 

The  second  and  third  modes  of  conceiving  of  the  origin 
of  language  are  the  modes  now  adopted  by  men  of  science. 
And  they  only  differ  in  degree  according  to  our  views  of 
the  relative  dignity  of  man  and  the  brutes.  All  philolo- 
gists are  more  or  less  disposed  to  place  among  the  natural 
attributes  of  man  a  faculty  for  expressing  himself  and  ex- 
pressing the  outside  world  also   in  appropriate  words. 

Some  go  farther  and  say,  that  this  faculty  for  vocal 
utterance  of  mental  feeling  is  common  to  man  with  the 
brutes;  tbat  the  brutes  are  not  brutes,  i.  e.  mutes;  that  the 
animals  all  have  parts  of  speech ;  and  that  man  has  the 
faculty  of  speech  only  and  simply  because  he  is  one  of  the 
animals.  His  faculty  is  larger  and  finer  than  theirs  be- 
cause his  brain  is  larger  and  finer  than  theirs ;  because  his 
mental,  moral,  and  spiritual  nature  is  more  angelic;  because 
his  senses  deal  with  a  larger  world  and  his  tastes  are 
refined  by  civilization.  But,  however  his  poetry  may  soar, 
and  his  eloquence  burn,  and  his  prayers  go  up  as  accept- 
able incense  before  Him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and 
before  the  Lamb,  these  glorious  phenomena  of  thought 
made  flesh  in  language  are  as  closely  and  eternally  related 
to  the  bleating  of  the  flocks  and  the  warbling  of  birds  as 
the  infinite  scope  and  sweep  of  solar  systems  in  the  heavenly 
spaces  are  closely  and  eternally  related  to  the  spiral  flight 
of  a  bee  when  the  hunter  liberates  it  from  his  box  in  a 
dingle  of  the  forest   to  guide  him  on  to  rob  its  hive. 

It  makes  no  difference  to  the  main  question  of  the  origin 


til]  as  a  test  of  race.  165 

of  language  whetlier  man  takes  the  animals  into  partner^ 
ship  or  not,  provided  he  considers  his  faculty  of  language 
constitutional. 

But  now  we  approach  the  difficulties.  How  is  human 
language  constitutional  ? 

It  may  be  asked  in  reply :  How  is  taste  constitutional  ? 
How  is  conscience  constitutional  ?  How  is  any  one  of  the 
bodily  senses  constitutional  ?  The  schoolmen  have  an- 
swered this  as  they  have  answered  the  other  question,  by 
saying  that  conscience  is  a  gift  from  God.  Eeligious  peo- 
ple get  over  a  similar  difficulty  by  preaching  and  praying 
for  a  change  of  heart.  The  old  philosophers  went  farther 
and  very  logically,  when  they  made  Taste  a  supernatural 
revelation ;  and  we  retain  a  fragment  of  their  superstition 
in  our  popular  use  of  their  word  Genius^  by  which  they 
understood  a  veritable  divine  possession,  analogous  (but 
opposite)  to  diabolical  possession.  But  no  one  has  gone 
so  far  as  to  make  our  bodily  senses  supernatural.  We  let 
the  physiologists  alone  and  wait  patiently  for  their  newest 
and  best  descriptions  of  how  these  faculties  are  constitu- 
tional. In  like  manner  we  read  Paley  and  Locke,  and 
Kant  and  Comte  and  Sir  William  Hamilton,  and  Mill  and 
Spencer  and  all  the  rest  of  the  psychologists,  to  get  the 
latest  and  clearest  and  most  consistent  views  of  the  con- 
stitutionality of  our  higher  powers,  taste  or  the  faculty  of 
liking,  conscience  or  the  faculty  of  judging,  worship  or 
the  faculty  of  serving.  ^VTiy,  then,  should  we  not  hear 
Schlegel  and  William  von  Humboldt  and  Max  Miiller 
describe  the  latest  and  best  modes  of  conceiving  how  lan- 
guage, or  the  faculty  of  self-utterance,  enters  as  a  har- 
monious part  into  the  human  constitution  ? 

I  say  modes  and  not  mode  of  conceiving,  because  these 
highest  philologists  are  not  agreed.  There  are  four 
theories  of  the  way  in  which  a  constitutional  tendency  to 
language  in  man  may  work  itself  out  and  produce  words, 
or  if  you  please  roots,  or  germs  of  words. 

Without  asking  you  to  take  my  names  as  perfectly  de- 
scriptive of  these  four  methods,  but  only  as  sufficiently 
suggestive  to  make  my  descriptions  plain,  I  will  call 
these  four  ways  : — 

1.  The  method  by  imitation. 

2.  The  method  by  interjection. 


166  ON    LANGUAGE  rLECT. 

8.  The  method  by  sympathy. 

4.  The  method  by  invention. 

The  first  theory  of  the  formation  of  words,  by  vmitation, 
supposes  that  men  were  originally  children  or  if  you  please 
monkeys  with  superior  vocal  organs  capable  of  reproducing 
all  the  sounds  of  nature  which  fell  upon  the  ear ;  and  that 
they  necessarily  called  the  dog-  '  bow/  and  the  cow  '  moo/ 
and  the  sheep  *baa/  before  they  could  discover  their-pro- 
perties  and  invent  other  and  higher  names.  You  are 
aware  that  the  ancient  grammai'ians  termed  the  whr)le 
class  of  such  imitations  '  onomatopoeic '  words,  and  that 
this  term  is  still  in  constant  use.  Our  boys  are  taiight  at 
school  that  such  words  as  hiss,  rattle,  clatter,  splash,  and 
many  others,  are  natural  attempts  to  make  language  out  of 
the  noises  of  nature.  And  it  is  no  doubt  so.  All  lan- 
guages have  this  kind  of  words.  Everybody  betakes  him- 
self to  imitation  when  he  hears  a  new  sound  in  nature 
which  has  not  before  been  named.*  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  curious  to  see  how  little  resemblance  exists  be- 
tween the  names  of  a  natural  sound  in  diiferent  languages. 
It  is  as  if  the  ears  of  different  races  heard  these  sounds 
differently.  To  understand  why,  let  any  one  listen  to 
some  inarticulate  sound — for  example,  the  roar  of  a  bull  — 
and  observe  how  circumstances  alter  its  character, — how 
it  is  one  thing  when  near,  and  another  when  far  away, — 
how  one  might  think  at  this  moment  that  it  sounded  hko 
low,  at  that  moment  like  ko,  at  another  like  moo,  at  a 
fourth  as  if  it  had  no  consonantal  beginning,  at  a  fifth  as  if 
it  had  a  consonantal  ending,  &c.  It  is  impossible  that  all 
human  language  should  have  arisen  from  so  meagre  and  so 
indefinite  a  stock  of  primary  imitations  of  natural  noises. 
To  say  nothing  of  the  necessary  expression  of  purely 
mental  creations — the  intransitive  verbs  to  be  and  to  hare, 
for  instances  — and  a  hundred  other  equally  aboriginal  and 
indispensable  words  in  every  language,  for  which  no  sound 
in  nature  ever  could  have  stood  as  model. 

The  second  theory,  that  of  intetjection,  provides  for  the 

*  I  have  a  little  cousin  three  years  old  who  began  to  call  a  pencil  re^ 
(rech),  and  has  continued  to  do  so  ever  since.  I  Icnow  of  no  other  origin 
for  this  word  th.ui  an  attempt  to  imitate  the  harsh  scratch  of  a  slate 
pencil  on  a  slate,  although  his  parents  are  not  aware  that  it  bad  such  an 
orisrin. 


VII.]  AS    A  TEST    OP   RACE.  167 

dijSiculties  wliicli  are  raised  in  tlie  way  of  accepting  the 
theory  of  imitation.  It  is  supposed  by  many  that  the 
rational  soul  of  man  struggled  into  speecli  as  the  Chris- 
tian enters  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  by  violence.  That  at 
first  the  communication  of  man  witli  nature  and  with  his 
fellow  man  was  like  that  of  the  animals,  and  like  that  of 
idiots,  by  cries  and  yells,  by  groanings  and  sighings,  by 
rude  attempts  at  varied  musical  notes,  by  hissings  and 
mutterings  and  murmurs,  gradually  getting  modulations 
of  their  own  and  falling  into  series  under  the  government 
of  the  memory  and  the  judgment  as  these  became  culti- 
vated by  exercise.  Certainly  there  are  interjections  in  all 
languages,  ohs  !  and  ahs  !  for  wonder  and  admiration  and 
complaint.  But  when  we  compare  the  interjections  of 
different  languages,  we  soon  perceive  that  there  exist  but 
half-a-dozen  which  can  be  called  universal,  or  could  serve 
as  a  starting-point  for  language.  The  moment  this  narrow 
charmed  circle  is  past  all  uniformity  ceases  and  some 
other  law  of  word-making  must  be  supposed  to  interfere. 
What  resemblance,  for  instance,  can  be  traced  between  the 
English  interjection  alas !  and  its  Gennan  synonym 
leider',  The  English  wo .'  is  the  same  as  the  Latin  vae  f 
(pronounced  wai),  but  the  French  helas !  has  not  the  least 
likeness  to  the  Pennsylvania-Dutch  autscli !  If  there  be 
an  interjectional  common  language  for  mankind  then  it 
must  be  so  beclouded  by  differences  in  the  vocal  organs, 
in  the  passions,  and  in  the  mental  experiences  of  the  differ- 
ent races,  and  its  root-words  must  have  suffered  so  much 
change,  that  all  attempts  to  use  it  as  a  guide  in  ethnology 
must  prove  futile.  At  the  same  time,  the  interjectional 
efforts  of  the  soul  in  the  direction  of  language  cannot  be 
lost  sight  of  in  attempting  to  explain  some  of  the  mys- 
teries and  curiosities  of  literature,  as  I  will  have  occasion 
hereafter  to  show.  And  Dr  Kraitsir  was  perhaps  nearer 
the  truth  than  many  of  us  imagine,  when  he  taught  that 
the  native  interjections  of  the  voice  went  forth  from  the 
mouth  under  the  influence  of  a  genuine  entente  cordiale 
or  permanent  good  understanding  between,  first,  the 
body  of  man  and  his  mind,  and  secondly,  between  the 
mind  and  surrounding  nature. 

For  the  third  theory  of  language,  then,  I  use  the  term 
tymjoathy.     Dr  Kraitsir's  interpretation  of  it  is  only  one 


168  ON   LANGUAGE  [lECT. 

of  several.  Other  philologists  describe  it  and  illustrate  it 
in  somewhat  diiferent  ways,  but  they  all  come  to  the 
same  thing  in  the  end.  Now  the  nature  of  this  sympa- 
thetic relationship  existing  between  man  and  nature  is 
perfectly  mysterious,  and  we  may  well  be  prepared  for 
complete  mysteries  in  its  vocal  manifestations.  The  first 
formation  of  language  must  be  a  great  mystery  on  any 
theory.  But  it  is  a  phenomenon  no  stranger  than  the 
newborn  child's  knowing  how  to  suck.  When  I  give  you 
one  or  two  illustrations  of  Dr  Kraitsir's  views,  then  you 
will  remember  how  deep  into  nature  these  magic  influences 
penetrate ;  and  how  the  automatic  adjustment  of  the 
crystalline  lens  of  the  eye  to  objects  of  sight  according  to 
their  distance  from  us  is  as  inexplicable  an  act  of  the 
brain  as  any  automatic  adjustment  of  the  tracheae  to  the 
objects  of  conversation. 

To  see  then  how  an  act  could  be  expressed  in  a  word, 
let  us  take  for  an  example  the  act  of  going  out.  What  is 
the  going  to  be  referred  to  ?  Dr  Kraitsir  answered :  to 
the  breath;  and  what  the  out  ?  Answer :  to  the  mouth.  If 
now  we  can  make  the  breath  perceptible  to  the  ear,  first 
while  still  within  the  mouth,  and  then  after  it  has  issued 
from  the  mouth,  and  if  we  can  give  our  auditor  a  clear  idea 
of  these  two  things  in  connection,  we  shall  have  expressed 
'  going  out.'  Let  us  then  first  make  a  noise  in  our  throat, 
i.  e.  pronounce  the  guttural  k ;  then  let  us  make  a  noise  of 
wind  issuing  from  our  lips,  or  rather  issuing  from  between 
the  tongue  and  the  teeth,  i.  e.  pronounce  the  sibilant  s. 
The  word  for  going  out  will  then  be  simply  the  two  letters 
k-s,  pronounced  together,  ks.  This  is  the  actual  Latin 
word  ex,  out  of. 

If  you  wish  a  more  complicated  instance,  I  will  give  you 
Kraitsir's  favourite  example,  which  always  made  me  smile 
I  confess,  but  which  furnishes  a  very  perfect  example  of 
the  mode  in  which  this  theory  of  the  sympathetic  formation 
of  language  applies  its  principles. 

How  can  we  imagine  that  the  human  mind  would  act 
upon  the  larynx  and  mouth  so  as  to  give  an  outsider  the 
idea  of  abstract  solidity,  matter,  body  ?  A  body  is  matter 
in  three  dimensions,  vertical,  horizontal  forwards,  and 
horizontal  sideways.  Now  the  organs  of  speech  consist 
chiefly  of  the  throat,  the  tongue,  and  the  lips ;  the  first  is 


Til.]  AS   A   TEST   OF    RACE.  169 

vertical,  the  second  horizontal  forwards,  and  the  third 
horizontal  sideways.  If  we  take,  therefore,  a  guttural,  a 
lingual,  and  a  labial,  we  can  with  these  three  sound  the 
three  dimensions  of  matter,  i.  e.  express  the  idea  of  a  body 
in  the  general.  Thus: — K"E"P,  co/^us,  the  Latin  word  for 
body.  From  this  word  can  now  be  formed  nouns,  verbs, 
adjectives,  adverbs,  &;c.,  expressing  modifications  of  this 
idea  of  solid  body,  ad  libitum ;  such  as  grijy,  grab,  grave, 
engrave,  &c. 

The  difficulty  in  tlie  way  of  acceptiug  such  a  system  of 
etymology  is  exactly  the  objection  we  feel  to  letting 
children  drive  a  fast  horse  — it  will  run  away  with  them 
and  smash  everything  to  flinders.  All  the  most  accom- 
plished philologists  of  our  day,  all  the  patient  and  success- 
ful investigators  into  the  historical  etymologies  of  words  — 
beginning  with  Jacob  Grimm,  the  father  of  the  modern  science 
of  comparative  philology,  and  including  such  men  as  Bopp 
and  Pott  and  Schott,  and  Kahlgren  and  Rochrig,  Halde- 
man,  Whitney,  Max  Miiller,  Ernest  Renan  — set  their  faces 
dead  against  what  they  consider  to  be  only  a  revival  of  the 
wild  vagaries  of  the  fanciful  philologists  of  past  times, 
from  the  old  Cratylus  of  Greece  to  the  new  Cratylus  of 
Oxford,  the  Evanses,  the  Pocockes,  the  Davises,  the 
Cannes,  and  a  host  of  other  names,  most  erudite  and  in- 
genious people,  but  working  on  the  old  and  false  system 
of  mere  analogy,  a  system  which  we  dare  not  now  return 
to  because  it  would  be  subversive  of  all  the  laws  of 
letter-variation  and  word-derivation  which  have  got  them- 
selves established  and  illustrated  within  the  last  thirty 
years  as  fully  as  any  of  ih.Q  laws  of  physics  or  natural 
history. 

K  you  wish  to  see  how  the  old  system  of  etymologies  is 
abhorred  and  repudiated  by  the  masters  of  the  new  system 
of  linguistic  mutation  and  derivation,  I  would  refer  you  to 
the  second  series  of  Max  Miiller's  Lectures  on  Language. 
He  is  particularly  severe  upon  the  first  two  theories  which 
I  have  enumerated  — the  method  by  imitation,  which  he 
calls  the  '  bow-wow  theory,'  and  the  method  by  interjec- 
tion, which  he  calls  the  '  pooh-pooh  theory.'  Speaking  of 
the  first  or  bow-wow  theory  he  says,  '  the  onomatopoeic 
theory  goes  very  smoothly  as  long  as  it  deals  with  cackling 
hens  and  quacking  ducks ;    but  round  that  poultry  yard 


170  ON   LANGUAOB  [l«CT. 

there  is  a  dead  wall,  and  we  soon  find  that  it  is  behind  that 
wall  that  language  really  begins.* 

To  illustrate  the  ridiculous  excess  to  which  the  second 
or  pooh-pooh  theory  may  be  driven  by  its  ignorant  advo- 
cates he  recites  from  the  Honolulu  newspaper,  the  Polyne- 
sian, of  1862,  an  etymology  of  the  Hawaian  word  Hooiaioai, 
to  testify,  viz.  from  five  roots  hoo-o-ia-io-ai,  meaning  causa- 
tion, interjection,  pronoun  definite,  rapid  and  thorough 
movement  resulting  in  realization  and  completion, — or  in 
English  words,  mahe  that  completely  out  to  be  a  fact, 
Hooiaioai ;  testify  to  its  truth.  Nothing  could  well  be  more 
ridiculous.  And  yet  our  libraries  are  filled  with  old 
volumes  on  language  containing  literally  myriads  of  etymo- 
logies as  ridiculous   and  more  ridiculous  than  that. 

To  take  another  class  of  etymologies  from  the  list  of 
proper  names  of  persons  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures :  when 
their  compilers  explain  the  change  from  Abram  to  Abra- 
ham by  the  announcement  that  he  was  to  be  the  father  of 
many  nations  because  in  the  Hebrew  of  Solomon^s  day  ah, 
rah,  and  am  were  the  three  words  for  father,  many  and 
people  without  reference  to  the  fact  that  his  original  con- 
nection was  with  central  Asia  and  its  languages,  why  should 
we  accept  their  etymology  ?  How  evidently  has  the  story 
of  Sarah's  laughter  been  inserted  in  the  legend  of  Isaac's 
birth  in  order  to  support  the  etymology  of  his  name  from 
the  Hebrew  verb  to  laugh  !  The  explanation  of  the  name  of 
Moses  :  '^  because  he  was  drawn  out  of  the  water,' — are  we 
to  prefer  it  to  that  of  the  monumental  Egyptian  proper 
name  mas,  which  means  a  child?  or  must  we  seek  still  other 
fanciful  resemblances  to  other  Egyptian  roots  ?  All  such 
etymologies  \insupported  by  well-known  facts  capable  of 
comparative  investigation  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  quote, 
and  a  drawback  if  employed  in  the  study  of  ancient  history. 
The  method  is  a  false  one  — radically  false. 

But  let  us  not  be  frightened  away  from  our  dinner  of 
honest  mutton  chops  or  noble  roast  beef  because  French 
cooks  can  deceive  the  traveller  with  ragouts  of  cat  when 
he  calls  for  hare.  A  Cuvier  will  eat  his  cat  with  gx-eat 
nonchalance,  and  hold  up  one  of  the  bones  to  the  landlord 
after  dinner,  remarking  with  a  siuile  that  his  hare  must 
have  been  a  most  singular  specimen,  having  an  anatomy 
analogous  to  the  carnivores. 


vn.]  AS   A    TEST   OF    EACE.  1  71 

When  a  transcendental  philologue  constructs  an  etymo- 
logy for  such  a  word  as  bersil,  the  Hebrew  word  for  iron, 
out  of  the  Hebrew  verb  pe>-es,  to  pierce  or  cut  and  a  sup- 
posed determinative  final  letter  I  meaning  through,  the 
conclusion  is  as  empirical  and  unscientific  as  fanciful  and 
untrustworthy  as  when  the  ancient  Talmudists  derived 
hersil  from  the  initial  letters  of  the  names  of  Ja-cob^s  four 
wives  Bilhah,  Rachel,  Zilpah,  and  Leah.  But  when  a  com- 
parative philologist,  obeying  the  canon  of  modern  science 
that  '  no  scripture  is  oi private  interpretation,'  takes  up  the 
study  of  all  the  names  of  iron  in  various  languages,  and 
as  one  of  a  whole  group  of  metals,  and  perceives,  first,  that 
when  reversed  the  Shemite  name  for  iron  is  the  Indo- 
Germanic  name  for  another  of  the  metals,  silher ;  and 
secondh',  that  its  first  syllable,  her,  is  also  represented 
by  the  Latin  word  for  gold,  aur,  the  Gemnan  haar,  the 
English  bullion,  the  French  hague  (originally  halg,  a  golden 
ring),  and  other  similar  analogues, — and  that  the  second 
syllable,  sil,  has  similar  relationships  with  cesel,  cJialkos, 
&c.,  &c. ;  he  is  on  the  high  road  to  some  valuable  result, 
which  his  investigations  will  be  sure  to  reach  if  patiently 
and  carefully  pursued. 

The  question  is  not  what  etymologists  who  are  ignorant 
of  or  indiiferent  to  Grimm^s  laws  of  mutation  have  done 
with  the  roots  of  language ;  but  the  question  is,  how  did 
the  roots  or  germs  of  language  originate  ?  Miiller  himself 
distinguishes  between  these  questions.  '  There  is  o'iie  class 
of  scholars,^  he  says,  '  who  derive  all  words  from  roots 
according  to  the  strictest  rules  of  comparative  grammar, 
b'it  who  look  upon  the  roots,  in  their  original  character,  as 
either  interjectional  or  onomatopoeic.  There  are  others 
who  derive  words  straight  from  interjections  and  the  cries  of 
animals,  and  who  claim  in  their  etymologies  all  the  liberty 
the  cow  claims  in  saying  inooli,  booh,  or  ooh,  or  that  man 
claims  in  saying  /  ooh,fi,  pfui.  With  regard  to  the  former 
theory,  I  should  wish  to  remain  entirely  neutral.^  It  is 
onl}'^  the  latter  that  he  opposes.  He  does  not  pretend  to 
say  how  much  of  the  language  of  the  first  savages  of  the 
earth  consisted  of  imitative  cries  and  interjections  ;  but  of 
this  he  is  quite  sure,  that  the  historical  languages  of  after 
times  obey  laws  of  mental  growth  and  rational  a,rrange- 


172  ON   LANGUAGE  [UECT. 

ment  whicli  ure  our  only  guides  througli  tlie  forest  of 
etymology. 

Professor  Pott  even  denies  that  tlie  root-words  of  lan- 
guages ever  were  words — spoken  words.  He  thinks  that 
they  are  mere  abstractions  obtained  by  our  analysis  of 
languages  now  spoken.  He  says,  if  they  existed  at  all  in 
early  ages  they  existed  merely  as  dim,  vague,  floating, 
formless  ideas  in  the  savage  brain,  and  came  out  in  that 
ancient  savage  speech  sometimes  in  one  form  sometimes 
in  another,  at  the  whim  of  the  speaker  or  the  promptings 
of  the  moment.* 

But  Miiller  cannot  take  so  German  a  view  of  roots.  He 
has  imbibed  in  Oxford  too  much  of  the  practical  genius  of 
the  English.  He  leaves  the  ghosts  of  words  behind  him, 
with  all  the  other  ghost  faith  of  his  fatherland.  He  thinks 
the  ancient  roots  of  words  were  the  first  actual  words  in 
use ;  but  then,  they  were  used  without  any  grammatical 
definition.  '  I  think,'  says  he,  '  that  there  was  a  stage  in 
the  growth  of  language,  in  which  that  sharp  distinction 
which  we  make  between  the  difi'erent  parts  of  speech  had 
not  yet  been  fixed,  and  when  even  that  fundamental  dis- 
tinction between  subject  and  predicate  on  which  all  the 
parts  of  speech  are  base^  had  not  yet  been  realized  in  its 
fullness,  and  had  not  yet  received  a  corresponding  outward 
expression.''t  He  refers  to  languages  at  the  present  day  in 
this  germinal  condition.  In  Chinese,  for  instance,  ly  means 
an  ox,  a  plough,  and  the  act  of  floughing  ;  ta  means  great, 
greatness,  and  greatly.  In  Egyptian  an'h  meant  life,  living, 
lively,  and  to  live.^  Other  languages  are  seen  just  coming 
out  of  this  first  stage  into  a  second,  where  the  root  is 
retained,  and  another  root  is  attached  to  it  to  show  the 
mental  distinctions.  In  the  Polynesian  dialects  any  verb 
may  be  used  unchanged  as  a  noun  or  adjective  by  adding 
kua  or  particles  of  aflBrmation,  and  ko  or  particles  of  the 
agent. §  In  our  own  English  we  speak  in  the  same  way; 
we  say  make,  make-r,  make-iiig.  Miiller  gives  a  still  more 
striking  illustration   from  the  language  of  children,  that 

*  Etymolog.  forschungen,  ii.  95.  in  Miiller,  p.  95. 
t  Second  Series  of  Lectures,  p.  95. 
X  Bunsen's  Egypt,  i.  324,  in  same. 
§  Hale,  p.  263,  in  same. 


VII.]  AS  A   TEST   OF    RACE.  173 

world  of  perennial  savagery ,  that  fountain  of  antiquity 
welling  up  for  ever  at  our  feet.  And  let  me  here  assure 
you  that  some  of  the  finest  laws  of  comparative  language 
have  been  discovered  by  watching  the  speech  of  children. 
Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  He  hath  ordained 
pi-aise.  And  he  who  thinks  that  he  can  settle  the  laws  of 
moraUty,  or  of  reason^,  or  of  language  without  the  closest 
and  most  patient  investigation  of  infants  and  young  people 
will  never  become  a  master  in  any  of  the  schools  of  the 
future, — of  that  he  may  rest  well  assured. 

What  then  is  the  process  of  forming  word-roots  in  the 
mouth  of  children  ?  A  child  says  '  up  !  up ! '  meaning,  '  I 
want  to  get  up  on  my  mother^ s  lap.'  In  his  mind  noun, 
verb,  adjective  are  completely  confounded  and  form  an 
ideal  unit.  It  will  be  months  or  years  before  he  can 
separate  the  subjective  I  from  the  objective  motJiei''s  lap, 
or  the  want  from  the  action  of  getting  up  into  it. 

But,  after  all,  we  do  not  get  an  idea  of  the  origin  of  this 
word  nj),  which  stands  for  so  much.  Our  children  take  it 
from  ourselves.  We  got  it  from  our  English  ancestors ; 
they  from  their  Saxon  forbears.  How  far  back  it  can  be 
traced  we  do  not  know.  We  know  of  no  sound  in  nature 
of  which  it  could  have  been  an  imitation.  We  know  of  no 
explosion  of  feeling  to  produce  such  an  interjection.  It 
would  be  hard  for  Dr  Kraitsir  to  devise  a  spiritual  explana- 
tion of  its  sympathy  with  what  it  represents,  whether  as 
up,  upward,  or  upon;  and  if  he  could,  the  explanation  would 
not  stand  good  for  its  correspondences  in  other  languages, 
such  as  auf  in  German,  su  in  Italian,  or  avoo  in  Greek.* 
And  what  is  true  of  this  word  is  true  of  all  other  unimita- 
tive  and  uninterjectional  roots,  the  world  round,  and  the 
aofes  throuo-h. 

Have  we  no  explanation,  then,  for  the  origin  of  the  great 
body  of  aboriginal  root-words,  and  for  the  numerous  pri- 
mary monosyllables  which  we  use  every  day?  I  must  re- 
peat what  I  said  at  the  beginning  of  this  lecture,  that  the 

*  The  sound  of  uj)  {ad,  pronounced  ap)  is  employed  by  the  Germans 
to  express  the  very  opposite  sense  of  dotcn.  The  French  have  no  word 
at  all  corresponding  to  the  English  up,  for  their  en  hattt  is  the  English  on 
high  ;  and  their  sus  is  never  used  but  in  composition.  That  curious  ex- 
ample of  '  polar  meanings,'  au  dessus  and  au  dessous,  is  repeated  in  a  wholly 
different  form  in  the  German  azy'and  ab. 


174  ON    LANGUAGE  [lECT. 

science  of  language  is  in  its  infancy.  But  still  we  are  not 
wholly  helpless.  You  remember  that  I  enumerated  four 
theories  of  the  origin  of  words  ;  but  I  have  described  only 
three  thus  far  :  the  method  by  interjection,  the  method  by 
imitation,  and  the  method  by  sym;  athy.  Each  of  these 
methods  is  available  for  some  words  ;  and  the  method  by 
sympathy  plays  an  important  part  in  the  construction  of 
large  sections  of  the  historical  languages,  as  I  may  perhaps 
make  clear  hereafter,  in  discussing  the  formation  of  the 
alphabet.  But  I  must  now  describe  to  you  the  fourth 
theory,  or  the  method  by  invention. 

It  is  denied  by  many  philologists  that  a  new  word  is  ever 
invented.  If  by  this  be  meant  out  of  the  head,  as  we  say, 
that  is,  without  any  reference  to  existing  words  and  things, 
it  may  possibly  be  true,  although  I  doubt  it.  But  if  it  be 
meant  that  no  new  words  have  ever  been  deliberately  con- 
structed and  put  into  circulation  by  intelligent  human  be- 
ings, words  which  had  no  connection  with  the  organic 
development  of  language,  I  think  that  all  human  experi- 
ence, certainly  all  literary  history,  proves  the  contrary. 
Nay,  I  think  that  I  can  show  that  the  majority  of  the  words 
now  used  by  civilized  people  are  inventions  or  modifications 
of  purely  invented  words.  Nay  more — and  this  is  the  princi- 
pal thought  which  I  wish  this  lecture  to  leave  impressed 
upon  your  minds — there  is  a  vast,  a  dominant  element  in 
language  which  I  call  the  bardic  element,  because  it  con- 
sists of  words  invented  by  bards  (poet-historians  and  poet- 
priests  of  old  times),  by  d-ruids  if  you  like  that  title  better  — 
an  element  which  has  superseded  and  overgrown  the  more 
ancient  and  savage  elements  of  language  just  as  the  oak 
forests  of  the  Bronze  age  superseded  the  pine  forests  of 
the  Stone  age,  and  as  the  beech  woods  of  the  Iron  age 
superseded  the  oak  forests  of  the  Bronze  age — an  element 
produced  by  the  cultivation  of  the  civilized  intellect ;  an 
element  of  religious,  moral,  and  social  terminology,  which 
now  forms  the  chief  and  almost  the  sole  bond  of  communion 
between  the  various  languages  of  the  earth.  And  philolo- 
gists have  so  far  ignored,  despised,  or  overlooked  this  ele- 
ment as  to  throw,  as  I  have  said,  a  profound  shadow  over 
the  early  history  of  man,  and  a  well-entertained  suspicion 
upon  the  best  conclusions  not  only  of  linguistic  ethnology' 


VII  1  A8   A   TEST    OF   RACE.  175 

but  of  their  own  science  of  comparative  grammar  itself.* 
1  sLall  attempt  nothing  more  this  evening  than  to  illus- 
trate these  assertions,  trusting  to  the  incidental  topics  of 
the  remaining  lectures  of  my  course  for  something  like  a 
reasonable  demonstration. 

The  great  efibrt  of  linguistic  science  has  been  to  prove 
that  the  present  races  of  men  came  from  one  original  race 
by  showing  how  all  languages  now  spoken  by  these  races 
can  be  traced  back  to  root-words  which  must  be  supposed 
to  have  formed  one  original  language.  I  have  already 
said  how  many  difficulties  start  up  in  the  way  of  any  such 
showing,  and  how  little  prepared  our  system  of  linguistic 
principles  is  for  such  an  undertaking.  But  furthermore, 
lano-uage  is  the  utterance  of  man^s  spiritual  nature.  It 
must  therefore  be  commensurate  with  that  nature.  It  must 
vary  as  that  nature  varies.  It  must  grow  with  its  growth. 
We  see  the  process  of  development  of  language  parallel 
with  the  development  of  mind  in  every  child.  Every  child 
drops  the  first  language  it  has  learned  to  speak  and  takes 
a  new  and  better  language  suited  to  its  advancing  years. 
Again,  the  language  of  the  boy  is  exchanged  afterwards  for 
the  language  of  the  man,  when  observation,  reading  and  so- 
ciety have  enlarged  the  mind  still  farther. f  See  how  the 
turgid  style  of  the  poetic  youth  disappears  before  the  solid 
matter-of-fact  style  of  the  man  of  business.  See  how  the 
Johnsonian  polysyllabic  Latiuism  of  five-and-tweuty  gives 
place  to  the  nervous  Saxon  monosyllables  of  fifty.  How 
smooth  and  fluent  are  Carlyle's  first  pages  !  how  harsh  and 
unreadable  his  later  books !  On  the  other  hand,  see  Edmund 
Burke  give  up  his  chaste  and  simple  early  English  for 
flowery  and  fantastic  periods  in  his  later  years.  All  lan- 
guage is  a  daguerreotype  of  the  soul.  It  is  inconceivable 
that  the  men  of  the  Bronze  age,  even  if  they  were  lineal 
descendants  (which  they  probably  were  not)  of  the  men  of 

*  Prof.  Whitney,  in  his  lectures  on  Linguistic  Science  delivered  at  the 
Smithsonian  Institution,  in  March,  1864,  says,  '  It  has  quite  recently  been 
found  that  language  is  the  principal  means  of  ethnological  investigation, 
of  tracing  out  the  deeds  and  fates  of  men  during  the  pre-historic  ages,'  &c. 
All  this  ought  to  be  true,  but  it  is  not  yet  true. 

t  The  boy  swears  in  Basque,  by  Jingo  !  {Jinco,  Basque  for  God),  and  the 
man  in  Greek,  by  Jove  ! 


176  ON    LANGUAGE  [leCT, 

tlie  Stone  age  could  have  spoken  the  saiae  language  with 
that  of  their  ancestors.  Later  civilizations  must  have  in- 
stituted still  different  languages.  All  language  is  in  a 
state  of  flux.  Savage  languages^  as  has  been  often  asserted, 
change  rapidly  from  generation  to  generation.  Our  north- 
west Indians,  we  have  been  assured,  could  not  comprehend 
their  great  grandfathers  if  now  alive,  and  hardly  their  own 
grandfathers.*  Nothing  but  writing  down  a  language 
can  save  it  from  destruction.  Nay,  that  will  not  do  it. 
The  Hebrew  is  gone;  the  Sanscrit  is  gone;  the  ancient 
Syriac  is  gone;  the  Babylonian,  Assyrian,  Egyptian  are 
all  gone ;  and  all  we  know  of  these  mammoths  of  past  mind 
we  learn  only  from  scattered  fragments  of  them  fossil- 
ized in  parchment  or  in  stone.  Look  at  the  changes  which 
English  has  sustained  since  Magna  Charta  was  engrossed. 
Nothing  but  printing  will  save  a  language  from  decay. 
Stop  the  growth  or  prevent  the  change  of  mind  and  you 
can  stop  the  growth  and  prevent  the  change  of  language. 
Printing  does  this  in  part.  Printing  fossilizes  mind.  The 
newspaper  is  an  epidemic  of  paralysis.  When  30,000,000 
of  people  wake  up  in  the  morning  together,  sit  down  to 
their  breakfast  at  the  same  hour,  call  for  5,000,000  of  copies 
of  the  same  column  of  telegraphic  despatch-news  printed 
over-night,  and  one  half  of  them  make  their  remarks  upon 
the  news  in  the  same  democratic  terms,  and  the  other  half 
in  the  same  aristocratic  terms,  the  good  God  has  arrived 
at  the  end  of  his  individual  creations.  Individuality  is 
gone.     One  language  at  least  is  fixed. 

Now,  if  in  all  times  this  law  of  the  growth  and  change 
of  language  in  dependance  upon  the  elevation  of  man's 
life  out  of  savagery  by  civilization  and  of  the  development 
of  his  intellect  by  culture  has  been  in  action,  how  absurd 
is  it  for  philologists  to  suppose  that  they  can  recover  by 
the  examination  of  either  present  grammars  or  present 
vocabularies  the  primeval  languages  of  the  Stone  age;  or 
determine  the  alliances  of  pre-historic  tribes ;  or  trace  the 
migrations  and  intermixtures  of  these  tribes  from  one  side 
to  the  other  of  the  globe  !  All  those  primeval  languages 
are  buried  up   deep  underneath  a  mass  of  pre-historic  lan- 

*  This  was  positively  denied,  however,  by  one  of  the  first  missionaries 
of  the  Hudson  Bay  stations,  who  told  me  he  formulated  the  noi  tlicrn 
languages,  and  found  them  rich  and  harmonious  and  almost  invariable. 


VII.]  AS    A  TEST   OP   RACE.  177 

guages,  which  in  their  turn  have  been  overlaid  by  the 
old  historic  tongues,  which  in  their  turn  have  been  over- 
laid by  the  dialects  now  spoken.  As  well  might  the  geo- 
logist expect  to  make  out  the  litholog}'"  and  structure  of 
that  inaccessible  primeval  crust  which  we  must  believe  to 
exist  beneath  the  Laurentian  system  the  base  of  which  we 
have  never  yet  seen.  As  well  might  he  expect  to  study 
the  old  Silurian  and  Devonian  limestone^  slate  and  sand 
deposits  by  analyzing  the  cretaceous  and  tertiary  marls 
and  clays  which  have  succeeded  and  replaced  them  in  the 
present  surface.  The  philologist  is  even  worse  off  than  the 
geologist ;  for  there  are  no  Laurentian  or  Huronian  or 
Silurian  mountains  of  language  outcropping  from  and 
overhanging  the  more  modern  tide-water  plains  of  literary 
history.  The  oldest  language  we  have  any  chance  to  study 
is  the  Egyptian,  a  language  of  only  8000  years'  standing, 
and  therefore  in  geological  phrase  a  quaternary  deposit  be- 
longing to  the  present  order  of  things,  a  language  already 
civilized,  full  of  the  terms  of  home  and  farm  life,  capable 
of  moral  and  religious  expressions,  and  so  nearly  akin  to 
English  in  its  staple  that  I  might  have  taken  from  it  my 
illustration  of  the  word  'up/  a  few  minutes  ago  instead 
of  from  the  English,  for  the  Egyptian  word  was  '  ap  ! ' 

When  Professor  Whitney  therefore — one  of  the  best 
philologists  of  the  new  school  now  living,  and  an  honour 
as  he  certainly  is  to  the  science  of  comparative  grammar — 
asserts,  as  he  did  in  his  Smithsonian  lectures  of  last  year, 
'  that  it  has  been  recently  found  that  language  is  the  prin- 
cipal means  of  ethnological  investigation,  of  tracing  out  the 
deeds  and  fates  of  men  during  the  pre-historic  ages,'  I 
demur  emphatically  to  the  allegation.  I  do  not  believe  it. 
Unless  hj  pre-historic  ages  he  means  merely  the  ages  which 
immediately  preceded  the  opening  of  monumental  and  lite- 
rary history;  unless  he  is  willing  to  exclude  entirely  from 
the  discussion  that  immense,  back-stretching  line  of  ages 
during  which  the  human  races  were  unlettered,  unhistoric, 
uncivilized  and  undevout,  all  record  of  which  is  lost  beyond 
redemption  by  philology  and  only  to  be  recovered  as  a 
part  of  the  geological  history  of  the  earth  and  its  inhabit- 
ants by  the  combined  efforts  of  the  geologists,  the  palee- 
ontologists,  zoologists  and  archaeologists  who  have  it 
entirely  and  justly  in  their  charge.     The  philologists  have 

12 


178  ON   LANGUAGE  [lbCT. 

nothing  whatever  as  yet  to  do  with  it.  Nor  will  they  have 
until  among  the  fossil  remains  of  primeval  men  some  trace 
of  letters  shall  be  discovered.  If  for  instance,  bones  in 
some  Poitou  cave  be  really  found  scratched  with  Sanscrit 
letters,  then  let  philologists  step  in  and  join  the  conclave. 
But  even  then  language  will  not  be,  as  Professor  Whitney 
says,  ^the  p  incipal  means  of  ethnological  investigation.'' 

The  great  mistake  made  by  the  new  school  of  linguistics 
is  in  supposing  that  there  is  no  fourth  theory  of  language; 
no  fourth  way  in  which  words  originated :  viz.  by  actual 
invention ;  no  part  of  language  which  encrusts  and  conceals 
the  organic  structure.  The  fact  is,  mankind  may  be 
divided  into  two  parts,  like  the  body  and  its  skin.  Rich- 
ardson says  that  the  characters  in  his  splendid  old  novel  of 
'  Sir  Charles  Grandison '  are  men,  women,  and  Italians. 
History  sa^'s  that  the  characters  in  its  drama  of  human  life 
are  men,  women,  and  priests.  Philologists  of  Professor 
Whitney's  school  busy  themselves  entirely  about  the  men 
and  women,  but  forget  all  about  the  priests. 

There  is  a  language  peculiar  to  every  bird  and  beast. 
There  was  a  language  peculiar  to  eveiy  human  race. 
There  is  a  dialect  charactei'istic  of  each  village,  township, 
city,  province  of  each  nation,  of  each  tribe  of  men  now 
living.  These  are  great  studies  for  the  philologist. 
They  can  be  separately  analyzed,  and  they  can  be  com- 
pared together.  Their  individual  histories  can  be  worked 
out  to  a  certain  distance  back,  as  far  as  there  are  any 
literary  records.  They  can  be  grouped,  and  to  a  certain 
extent — a  very  moderate  extent — classified.  They  even 
afford  stuff  for  most  ingenious  and  pei-fectly  scientific  and 
trustworthy  conclusions,  such  as  Grimm's  laws  of  mutation 
and  derivation.  But  they  will  not  make  of  the  philologist 
a  trustworthy  ethnologist.     Why  ? 

Because  there  is  something  else  which  he  forgets  to 
study,  which  he  refuses  to  believe  in.  There  is  a  language 
of  priests.  Because  this  language  of  priestcraft  exists  in 
among  local  dialects  and  national  languages.  Nay,  be- 
cause it  is  so  interfused  with  them  as  to  form  a  component 
part  of  their  constitution.  Every  language  of  modem 
times  is  stamped  with  this  priest-language  all  over  on  the 
outside,  is  full  of  it  inside,  in  its  flesh  and  in  the  marrow 
of  its  bones.     No  anatomical  preparation  to  be  seen  in  a 


•VII,]  AS   A    TEST    OF    T?ACE.  179 

museum  is  more  completely  streaked  and  analyzed  to  the 
eye  by  the  red  substance  of  injection  than  is  the  English, 
the  French,  the  Arabic,  the  Hindu,  the  Zingali,  the  Bur- 
mese, the  Japanese,  the  Tasmanian  injected  and  confused 
with  a  priestly  language  to  the  eye  of  the  philologist  who 
will  consent  to  recognize  its  existence. 

What  this  priestly  language  is,  and  how  it  seems  to 
have  originated,  and  why  it  is  thus  disseminated  through 
all  the  various  languages  which  are  spoken  by  tLe  various 
races  of  mankind,  I  shall  endeavour  to  explain  in  my  next 
two  lectures  on  architecture  and  on  the  alphabet.  But 
you  will  agree  with  me  that  if  such  an  element  can  be 
proved  to  exist  in  various  languages  it  must  have  the 
effect  of  greatly  confusing  and  mystifying  philologists  who 
ignore  its  existence.  And  still  more,  if  this  element  com- 
mon to  many  languages  is  in  fact  the  principal  or  pre- 
dominant one  of  the  elements  which  constitute  their 
vocabularies,  you  can  imagine  how  it  must  obliterate  the 
original  distinctions  between  languages  and  render  the 
task  of  tracing  the  descent  of  races  and  their  migrations 
previous  to  the  introduction  of  this  priestcraft  almost  if 
not  entirely  hopeless. 

Here  I  should  properly  end  the  lecture  of  this  evening; 
but  a  few  words,  before  we  part,  on  the  classification  of 
languages  found  in  the  books.  The  text  books  of  philology 
distinguish  languages  as  of  three  kinds: — 1.  The  mono- 
syllabic, 2.  The  agglutinate,  and,  3.  The  inflected. 

The  first  kind  are  those  which  speak  each  word-root  by 
itself,  pi'eceded  and  followed  by  other  word-roots,  each 
carrying  its  own  idea  in  full,  and  leaving  the  hearer  to  find 
out  the  grammatical  relation  between  them  by  his  own 
wits,  or  by  some  accent  or  emphasis  or  musical  modulation 
of  the  speaker^s  voice.  The  specimen  of  this  kind  usually 
given  is  the  Chinese. 

The  second  or  agglutinate  varieties  of  language  combine 
the  monosyllables  which  grammatically  belong  together 
into  polysyllabic  words,  like  the  Saxon  words  for-bear, 
cart-horse,  and  into  fixed  grammatical  idioms  like  to  he,  to 
do,  to  insist,  according  unto,  &c.  And  this  process  can  be 
carried  on  to  any  extent.  Words  which  have  been  com- 
pounded of  three  or  four  words  can  be  contracted  to 
monosyllables  and  then  compounded  anew,  as  an  economi- 


180  ON  LANGUAGE  [lECT. 

cal  family  can  live  three  days  on  a  single  round  of  beef  by 
rehashing  it  with  other  portions  of  their  meals  from  day 
to  day.  I  may  find  occasion  to  illustrate  this  boiling-down 
and  cooking-up  process  in  language  hereafter.  Its  phe- 
nomena are  very  curious  and  instructive. 

The  third  class  of  languages,  the  inflected,  are  so  called 
because  their  words  are  not  served  up  pure  and  simple, 
alone  or  in  courses,  but  garnished  with  prefixes  and  affixes, 
which  are  as  variable  as  Soyer's  recipes.  The  old  gram- 
marians called  these  variations  '  cases,'  or  fallings-ofif  from 
the  upright  simplicity  of  the  word-root;  and  they  gave 
names  to  these  cases,  nominative,  genitive,  dative,  &c.,  for 
the  purpose  (apparently)  of  rendering  it  as  difficult  as  pos- 
sible for  the  grammar-school  boys  of  Boston  to  pass  their 
examination  at  Harvard.  Our  own  grammatical  grand- 
fathers in  their  wisdom  saw  fit  to  transplant  that  bar- 
barous Greek  paradigm  into  an  English  soil,  where  nothing 
but  the  hop-pole  support  of  the  birch  rod  has  ever  availed  to 
keep  it  in  sickly  existence.  Yet  we  still  teach  our  wonder- 
ing babes  to  poll-parrot  '  nominative,  a  man,'  '  genitive,  of 
a  man,'  '  dative,  to  a  man,'  '  accusative,  a  man,'  '  vocative, 
oh  man  ! '  '  ablative — non  est  inventus ' — although  the  whole 
genius  of  our  language,  which  belongs  to  the  second  or 
agglutinate  class,  cries  shame  so  audibly  that  the  babes 
themselves  have  heard  it.  English  '  cases  ! '  there  are  no 
such  things  !  In  Latin  and  Hebrew  and  Sanscrit  inflec- 
tional forms  have  been  dread  realities.  How  such  a  bui*- 
den  could  have  been  borne  by  the  educated  classes  at 
Rome  and  Athens  and  Jerusalem  it  is  hard  to  compre- 
hend. Some  philologues  have  doubted  that  the  Latin  of 
the  schools  ever  got  spoken  by  any  class  below  Hortensius 
and  Cicero.  But  when  we  turn  to  our  North  American 
Indians  and  see  how  complicated  the  grammatical  com- 
binations and  inflections  of  their  dialects  have  been,  we 
may  believe  that  the  very  shepherds  of  Ephraim  knew  how 
to  use  the  seven  forms  of  the  Hebrew  verb — kal,  he  cuts; 
niphal,  he  is  cut ;  piel,  he  cuts  hard ;  pual,  he  is  cut  hard ; 
hiphil,  he  causes  to  cut ;  hophal,  he  is  made  to  cut ;  and 
hithpael,  he  cuts  himself — as  glibly  as  the  oldest  rabbi  of 
the  Bagdad  or  Tiberias  schools.  In  fact,  there  is  no  limit 
to  the  ability  of  an  ediicated  boy  in  the  direction  in  which 
that  education  goes.    Some  of  the  most  difficult  languages. 


II 


VII.]  AS   A   TEST   OF   RACE.  181 

completely  artificial  and  admirably  adapted  for  variety 
and  precision  in  their  use,  are  tte  languages  of  savage 
tribes  existing  at  the  present  day.  There  is  no  good 
reason  therefore  for  denying  that  the  most  ancient  men  of 
the  oldest  Stone  periods  had  languages  as  complicated  and 
as  inflectional  as  any  now  known  to  exist,  and  with  a 
vocabulary  commensurate  with  the  variety  of  things  by 
which  they  were  surrounded  and  of  actions  which  their 
life  gave  birth  to. 

It  is  not  to  be  admitted  for  a  moment,  that  we  must 
trace  back  the  existing  languages  to  theii'  word-roots  and 
suppose  these  word-roots  to  have  constituted  the  early 
language  or  languages  of  man.  We  have  no  hberty  to 
suppose  that  the  earliest  languages  were  monosyllabic. 
As  I  have  said  before,  it  is  not  at  all  established  that  lan- 
guages become  monosyllabic  as  we  trace  them  backward. 
On  the  contrary,  there  are  many  things  to  show  that  the 
tendency  of  all  languages  is  to  grow  more  and  more  mono- 
syllabic in  the  course  of  time,  that  is,  in  the  direction 
towards  our  day,  not  backward  towards  the  beginning.  It 
is  not  proved  that  ^  China  and  Further  India,'  as  Prof. 
Whitney  and  many  others  with  him  maintain,  '  are  occu- 
pied by  races  whose  languages  are  monosyllabic  because 
they  have  never  grown  out  of  that  original  stage  in  which 
Indo-Gerraanic  speech  had  its  beginning.'  *  The  great 
Orientalist,  Abel  Remusat,  even  refuses  to  admit  that  the 
Chinese  is  entirely  a  monosyllabic  tongue,  and  instances 
such  compound  words  as  tsiang-jhi,  woi-kman  (Zimmer- 
mann),  and  fschung-sse,  bell-master,  to  justify  his  doubts. 
Beste  shows  that  there  are  only  100  real  monosyllabic 
words  out  of  8000  which  the  Chinese  scholars  use  ;  and 
although  he  thinks  that  the  old  Chinese  was  monosyllabic, 
he  shows  that  the  modern  has  15  kinds  of  composition. 
Ampere  condemns  the  doctrine  of  Chinese  monosyllabism 
based  merely  on  the  ground  of  single  characters.  Abel 
Remusat  shows  how  the  Chinese  terminal  -jan  in  adjectives 
is  exactly  equivalent  to  the  terminations  -ment  in  French 
(from  mens,  mentis),  and  -lich  in  German.  Plath  explains 
how  early  introduction  of  Chinese  monosyllabic  writing 
prevented  the  rise  of  grammatical  inflexions ;  and  while 
maintaining  that  the  meanings  of  affixes  remain  apparent, 
*  P.  Ill,  Smith  Rep.,  1863. 


182         ON  LANGUAGE  AS  A  TEST  OP  EACE. 

gives  iiiuny  instances  of  one  root  retaining  many  meanings, 
instead  of  receiving  new  meanings  by  affixes.* 

I  have  shown  in  a  paper  read  before  the  American  Phi- 
losophical Society  of  Philadelphia  not  long  ago  and  pub- 
lished in  their  Proceedings,  that  when  one  classifies  the 
names  which  have  been  given  by  people  speaking  many 
diSerent  dialects  and  languages  to  some  one  common  and 
famihar  and  unmistakable  object  in  nature,  such  as  wind, 
or  fire,  or  a  stone,  or  the  human  head,  or  hand,  this  remark- 
able result  is  obtained :  namely,  that  every  organic  utter- 
ance and  shade  of  utterance  possible  to  the  human  organs 
of  speech,  labial,  lingual,  dental,  nasal,  and  guttural,  has 
been  employed  to  express  the  self-same  object.  I  pursued 
the  inquiry  only  through  two  or  three  hundred  of  the 
several  thousand  dialects  and  languages  of  the  present  or 
comparatively  modern  days ;  and  yet  in  this  small  and 
hap-hazard  collection  it  is  perfectly  apparent,  that  while  in 
one  country  an  object  may  be  called  ha,  in  another  it  will 
be  called  da,  in  a  third  la,  in  a  fourth  na,  in  a  fifth  ga ;  in 
others  ap,  at,  ar,  an,  ah ;  in  others  har,  or  dar,  or  lar,  or 
nar,  or  gar ;  in  others  dah,  or  nal,  or  pad,  or  lag  ;  in  others 
other  combinations  of  these  elements  will  be  in  use  in  the 
form  of  a  simple  monosyllable ;  in  others  a  more  complicated 
system  of  dissyllables  or  trissyllables  will  exist ;  and  here 
and  there  long  words  will  have  grown  up  out  of  one  or  other 
of  the  original  simple  elemental  organic  sounds ; — and  all 
these  forms  are  in  existence  and  in  daily  use  in  one  age ; 
and  all  these  numerous  modifications  of  utterly  diverse 
lingual  elements  are  in  constant  employment  to  express 
one  thing,  and  that  one  thing  a  simple,  unmistakable  ob- 
ject of  nature   aflFecting  the  senses  of  all  mankind  alike. 

I  will  close  this  lecture,  then,  by  stating  again  and  upon 
this  new  basis  my  conviction  that  most  of  the  generaliza- 
tions of  the  science  of  Comparative  Philology — those  which 
take  hold  of  all  the  larger  problems  of  human  history,  the 
origin  of  languages,  the  migrations  of  nations,  the  diversity 
of  races,  the  development  of  mythologies — are  as  yet  grand 
failures ;  and  that  a  much  more  thorough-going  method,  a 
much  profounder  synthesis  of  facts  is  needed  to  lead  us  to 
the  desired  end  of  our  researches  in  this  field. 

*  See  his  theory  at  the  bottom  of  paj^e  216,  Sitzungbe  :  R.  Bair.,  Acad. 
1861,  II.  iii.,  and  top  of  p.  217.  On  ihc  Tone  Speech  of  the  old  Chinese 
with  two  pages  of  radicals,  161  in  number  (p.  212). 


LECTURE  Vm. 

THB    ORIGIN    OF    ARCHITECTURE. 

The  Fine  Arts  preceded  Belles  Lettres  in  the  order  of 
time  as  well  as  in  the  order  of  a  philosophical  classification 
of  the  Intellectual  Sciences.     Men  knew  how  to  build  be- 
fore they  knew  how  to  write.     You  may  be  surprised  that 
I  interpolate  this  lecture  on  Architecture,  between  my  last 
lecture  on  Language  and  my  next  lecture  on  Literature. 
But  I  follow  the  order  of  nature.     The  soul  of  man  en- 
dowed with  language  utters  itself  first  in  sculpture  and 
painting,  then  in  literature,  then  in  moral   and   beneficent 
deeds,  and  finally  in  acts  of  worship, —  successively  em- 
ploying higher  and  higher  faculties  upon  better  and  nobler 
materials.     In  the  first  stages  of  his  savage  existence  man 
wasted  most  of  his  time  and  energies  waiting  on  nature ; 
watching   patiently  for    the    rise    of  a  trout,  or   for  the 
approach  of  a  deer.     Much  of  this  time  was  whiled  away 
in  reverie.     The  hunter  lived  an  inner  life  of  mere  per- 
ception ;  a  continual  stream  of  paltry  observations  flowed 
through  him,  having  merely  leaves  and  twigs,  spiders  and 
butterflies,    occasional    startings    of   bird   and    beast    and 
glimpses   of  the  outside   sky  and  distant    landscape    for 
their  only  objects.     This  was  no  miserable  life  !     It  would 
be  maligning  the  Divine  Creating  Charity  to  suppose  it. 
It  is  the  life  of  all  animals — and  they  are  all  happy.     So 
were  the  early  races  of  mankind.     So  are  all  men  yet. 
Come  we  to  speak  of   Happiness   we  speak  of  that  which 
Grod   has   made    universal.      It   is   a  synonym     for    Life. 
Therefore  we   call  God  good.     And    the  young  man  who 
leaves  Harvard  or  Yale  to  tramp  through  the  woods  of  the 
AUeghanies  with  a  transit  over  his  shoulder  or  a  level-rod 
in  his  hand  will  soon  leam  how  happy  his  first  ancestors 
must  commonly  have  been  ;  and  why  the  grave  and  me- 


184  THE    ORIGIN    OF  [lIICT. 

lanckoly  Indians  (as  we  call  tliem  in  our  ignorance)  are  so 
full  of  fun  and  frolic  at  all  times  when  not  subdued  by 
hunger,  fear   or  drunkenness. 

Now^  the  first  and  most  natural  and  easy  language  of 
this  animal  happiness,  after  gesticulation,  is  sculpture. 
Hence  all  active  savages  amuse  themselves  with  whittling. 
Witness  all  our  boys,  and  all  the  grown-up  boys  of  our 
Western  country.  The  practice  has  been  universal  to  all 
races,  through  all  ages,  from  the  beginning.  It  is  the 
origin  of  sculpture^  which  in  its  turn  made  literature  pos- 
sible; for  one  of  the  oldest  forms  of  writing  which  we 
know,  the  Irish  Ogham  character,  was  whittled  out  on 
sticks  ;  and  the  early  Egyptian  characters  were  cut  in 
stone.  The  tendency  to  employ  the  hands  while  the  body 
rests  is  greater  in  cold  climates  than  in  hot  ones  ;  and 
therefore  we  should  expect  to  find  eai'lier  traces  of  sculp- 
ture in  the  temperate  zones.  But  sculpture  is  absolutely 
universal,  and  commenced  with  the  appearance  of  man 
upon  the  earth.* 

The  earliest  traces  of  it  which  we  have  (as  yet)  dis- 
covered, are  on  the  scratched  bones  of  the  diluvium  and 

•  The  ingenious  author  of  Essai  sur  I'lnegalit^  des  Races  Humaines, 
M.  A.  de  Gobineau  (Paris,  1853,  Phil.  Lib.,  vol.  i.  p.  356),  has  a  theory  th;it 
the  artistic  geuius  was  equally  foreign  to  the  natures  of  the  three  great 
type  races,  yellow,  white,  and  black,  into  which  he  divides  mankind ;  and 
that  it  did  not  make  its  appearance  until  the  white  and  black  race  mingled. 
'  Thus,  also,  by  the  birth  of  the  Malay  variety  there  sprang  from  the  yel- 
low and  black  races  a  family  more  intelligent  than  its  double  parentage  ; 
and  again,  from  the  alliance  of  the  yellow  and  the  white  there  issued 
means  very  superior  to  the  populations  purely  Finnish,  as  well  as  to  the 
Melanian  tribes.  I  do  not  deny  it,'  he  continues, '  these  are  good  results. 
The  world  of  arts  and  noble  literature  result  from  mixtures  of  blood,  in- 
ferior races  ameliorated,  ennobled  .  these  are  marvels  to  applaud.  The 
small  are  elevated.  But,  alas,  the  great  at  the  same  time  are  abased,  and 
this  is  an  irreparable  ill  not  to  be  compensated.  From  the  mixture  of 
race  come  also  refinements  of  manners,  ideas,  faiths,  especially  sweetenings 
of  the  passions  and  desires.  But  these  are  transitory  benefits ;  and  if  1 
must  recognize  the  fact  that  the  mulatto,  of  whom  one  can  make  a  lawyer, 
doctor,  merchant,  is  better  than  his  negro  grandfather,  wholly  uncultivated 
and  good  for  nought,  I  must  avow  also  that  the  Bramans  of  primitive 
India,  the  heroes  of  the  Iliad,  and  those  of  the  Schahnameh,  the  warriors 
of  Scandinavia,  all  phantoms  so  glorious  of  races  the  most  beautiful  long 
since  vanished,  offering  an  image  of  humanity  more  brilliant  and  more 
noble,  were  especially  the  agents  of  civilization  and  grandeur  more  active, 
more  intelligent,  more  sure  than  the  mixed  peoples,  mixed  one  hundred 
times  of  the  present  epoch,  and  yet  already  they  were  not  pure.' 


VI II.  J  AECHITECTUKB.  185 

the  cave-mud  deposits.  Many  of  these  are  merely  marks 
left  by  the  flint  tools  with  which  the  savages  removed  the 
flesh  from  the  surface  of  the  bone,  but  some  are  indubi- 
tably patterns  of  the  fancy,  scratched  in  that  dolce  far 
niente  mood  in  which  a  savage  digests  his  dinner.  Some 
are  actually  cut  into  imitative  shapes.  The  most  interest- 
ing specimens  of  Stone-age  art  which  I  have  ever  seen  are 
those  of  roots  preserved  in  the  cabinet  of  M.  Bouclier  (\' 
Perthes  at  Abbeville.*  They  were  found  in  the  peat-bogs  of 
the  river-bottom,  and  are  therefore  of  less  extreme  an- 
tiquity than  the  flint  instruments  of  the  diluvium.  But 
they  are  old  enough,  heaven  knows  !  and  very  curious. 
They  are  in  the  form  sometimes  of  men,  with  straddling 
legs  and  arms ;  sometimes  of  ducks,  or  snakes,  or  frogs. 
But  whatever  shape  it  may  be,  some  artificial  addition  has 
been  made  to  it  by  the  joking  savage  to  increase  its  like- 
liness  and  to  express  his  appreciation  of  its  oddity,  or  per- 
haps we  ought  to  add,  in  his  eyes,  to  its  beauty.  For 
when  we  see  how  evidently,  how  inexpressibly  lovely  to 
the  enthusiastic  little  mother-heart  of  one  of  our  baby 
daughters  her  dirty,  black,  old,  hideous  doll  can  be  we 
may  believe  that,  to  the  art  sentiment  just  sown  and  hardly 
yet  sprouting  in  those  aboriginal  savage  souls  a  black 
forked  efiigy  of  humanity  with  the  addition  of  a  cut  with 
a  flint  knife  for  a  mouth,  and  a  peck  on  each  side  of  its 
head  for  two  eyes  would  represent  Venus  the  goddess  of 
lovehness,  if  not  indeed  Jupiter  the  awful  thunderer. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  accounting  for  tastes — when  we 
consider  circumstances. 

The  next  stage  in  sculpture  was  probably  imitations  in 
stone  of  the  marks  of  wet  feet  and  hands.  These  would 
first  be  made  at  river  fordings,  and  afterwards  on  the  tojis 
of  look-out  mountains.  Such  sculpturings  are  described 
in  books  of  travels  all  over  the  world.  The  savage  crosses 
a  stream  by  swimming  and  dries  his  dripping  body  on 
some  sun-lit  rock.  Then  he  waits  for  his  companions,  or 
for  his  prey,  or  for  his  enemy.  Meanwhile  he  pecks  away 
at  one  of  the  damp  footsteps  on  the  rock.  Others  notice 
what  he  has  left  undone  and  finish  it.  The  footprint 
becomes  a  permanent  landmark.     Some  battle  there   in 

*  The  sculptured  bones  of  the  caves  of  the  Dordogne  had  not  been 
found  when  this  was  written. 


186  THE    ORIGIN    OP  [lECT, 

subsequent  days  shall  make  it  famous.  Some  deified  hero 
shall  be  propitiated  there  by  sacrifices.  The  footprint 
becomes  a  symbol  of  worship.  You  have  all  heard  of  the 
two  footprints  sculptured  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Olivet 
and  worshipped  by  pilgrims  as  the  marks  left  when  Jesus 
sprang  into  the  sky  at  his  ascension.  There  is  another 
footprint  of  Jesus  preserved  on  a  stone  in  the  Mosque  v»f 
Omar,  at  the  extremity  of  the  eastern  aisle.*  At  Poitiers, 
in  France  the  traveller  may  see  two  footprints  of  the  Lord 
upon  a  slab  enshrined  in  the  south  wall  of  the  church  of  St 
Eadigonde,  made  when  he  stood  before  her  to  inform  her 
of  her  coming  martyrdom. 

The  prints  of  the  two  feet  of  Ishmael  are  preserved  on  a 
stone  in  the  temple  of  Mecca  which  tradition  says  was  the 
threshold  of  the  palace  of  his  father-in-law,  the  king  of  the 
Dhorhamides.f  Others  say  that  they  are  the  prints  of  his 
father  Abraham's  feet  when  IshmaeFs  termagant  wife 
drove  the  old  patriarch  away  from  the  threshold  of  her 
husband's  house. 

On  the  top  of  the  highest  mountain  in  Ceylon  are  the 
prints  of  Adam's  feet.  There  are  two  immense  foot- 
prints, 200  feet  apart,  on  the  rocks  of  Magdesprung,  a 
village  in  the  Hartz  mountains  of  Germany,  which  tradition 
says  were  made  when  a  huge  giantess  leaped  down  from 
the  clouds  to  save  one  of  her  beautiful  maidens  from  the 
violence  of  a  baron  of  the  olden  times.  J  The  holiest  object 
in  the  great  temple  of  Burmah  is  the  so-called  footprint  of 
Gaudama,  seven  feet  long,  divided  into  compartments  and 
sculptured  in  an  extraordinary  manner  in  the  fashion  of  an 
astrological  charm. 

j\ly  purpose  is  not  to  lead  you  into  the  dark  chambers  of 
heathen  imagery.  I  might  not  be  able  to  explain  at  all  to 
your  satisfaction  this  disposition  of  the  human  race  to 
worship  the  human  foot  and  everything  belonging  to  it, 
though  I  have  my  theory  for  it.  We  will  stick  to  our 
subject   which  is  sculpture  and  its  origin. 

But  I  wish  I  could  transport  this  audience  to  a  moun- 
tain top  where  I  stood  one  day  last  spring  and  show  them 
a  specimen  of  savage  sculpture  of  the  most  primeval  type. 

*  F.  33,  21,  4  index. 

t  WeU's  Legends  of  Moh  mmed,  36,  23  h.  t  32,  2. 


VIII.]  AECHITECTURE.  187 

It  is  a  broad-backed,  flat-topped  mountain  in  western 
Pennsylvania,  the  westernnidst  of  those  which  compose 
the  Alleghanies.  It  is  cleft  from  summit  to  base,  a  depth 
of  1300  feet,  by  a  narrow  gorge  through  which  flows  roar- 
ing on  towards  the  west  to  join  the  Ohio  one  of  the 
fairest  rivers  in  the  world,  the  Youghioghany.  On  the 
southern  brow  of  this  gorge,  looking  down  fearfully  into 
it,  and  also  looking  In-oadly  out  over  all  the  western 
country  with  a  sweep  of  horizon  taking  in  the  blue 
distance  of  the  Pittsburg  hills,  there  is  a  table  of  bare 
sandstone  rock.  The  people  call  it  as  the  Indians  did 
before  them  the  Cows'  rock.  The  road  runs  over  it ;  and 
the  tracks  of  wheels  are  scratched  upon  it.  But  ages 
before  old  Heckewelder's  daughter  was  born  the  first 
white  child  west  of  the  Alleghany  mountains,  the  Indian's 
trail  went  over  this  same  rock.  And  here  the  red  men, 
weary  with  the  hot  and  long  ascent,  rested  themselves ; 
pitched  pebbles  down  into  the  abyss  of  the  river  gorge, 
and  looked  out  over  the  illimitable  forests  of  Westmoreland 
county  to  catch  the  distant  smoke  of  the  fires  of  their 
tribes.  And  while  they  sat  they  cut  those  fanciful  figures 
in  the  face  of  the  rock  Avhich  still  remain,  half  obliterated 
by  the  wheels  of  the  white  man's  waggons,  but  still  kept 
clean  by  the  rains.  There  you  may  see  the  cloven  foot  of 
cows  or  bufialo,  and  human  feet,  and  three-toed  marks  of 
birds,  like  Deane's  and  Hitchcock's  ornithichnites,  and 
wa\nr)g  snakes,  and  others  not  so  easy  to  decipher.  I  went 
to  see  the  place  hopiug  that  the  imagination  of  the  farmers 
had  misled  them  and  that  the  works  would  prove  to  be 
the  casts  of  fossils  ;  but  there  was  no  mistaking  their  arti- 
ficial character.* 

In  the  same  way  the  human  hand  is  stamped  and  cut 
upon  a  thousand  clifi's  and  on  the  walls  of  temples.  It  was 
a  favourite  subject  of  art  in  Central  America.  You  know 
it  was  used  by  the   Roman   legions  as  a  'sacred  standard. 

*  Similar,  more  numerous,  and  more  })erfectly  executed  rock  sculptur- 
ings,  covering  the  stoss  sides  and  backs  of  some  granite  islets,  in  the  hed 
of  the  Susquehanna  river,  at  Safe  Harbour,  below  Columbia,  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, have  been  piiotographed  and  described,  from  plaster  casts  taken  of 
them  by  Prof.  Thomas  Porter,  the  president,  and  other  members  of  the 
Linnean  Society,  at  Lancaster,  and  jjublished  recently  in  the  Proceedinga 
of  the  American  Philosophical  Society  at  Pliiladelphia. 


188  THE    ORIGIN   OF  [lECI, 

Tlie  two  hands  of  man  were  his  two  great  gods,  his  pro- 
viders, his  defenders.  In  the  Thracian  mythology  they 
were  the  Cabiri,  the  great  gods  workers,  and  their  children 
were  the  ten  dactyloi,  or  fingers.  Then,  when  men  in  old 
times  grew  tired  of  worshipping  their  own  hands  they 
began  to  worship  the  uplifted  hand  of  the  bard-priest 
blessing  them  and  of  the  bard-baron  crushing  them. 
Afterwards  its  beauty  seized  upon  the  sesthetic  sense  of  the 
artist,  and  men  drew  it  and  sculptured  it  for  its  own  sake 
rather  than  for  what  it  had  accomplished.  When  the  pope 
sent  a  commission  to  Michael  Angelo  to  examine  his 
ability  he  refused  to  be  examined;  but,  seizing  a  piece  of 
chalk  he  drew  a  human  hand  so  boldly  and  with  such 
grace  and  such  expression  that  no  further  question  could 
be  asked;  and  so  he  built  St  Peter's.*  Finally  science 
drew  the  hand,  and  proved  by  it  in  a  Bridgewater  Treatise 
that  there  must  be  an  all-wise  and  beneficent  Creator. 

Such  is  the  history  of  all  the  fine  arts. — There  is  an 
insensible  graduation  of  art  for  imitation  into  art  for 
ornament.  The  tools  of  one  age  become  the  amulets  of  a 
succeeding  age ;  as  in  the  case  of  the  Swiss  flints.  The 
phallus  found  in  the  Poitou  cave  was  either  an  idol  or  an 
amulet.  The  ladies  of  Rome  wore  such  as  breastpins  in 
,  the  Augustan  age.  The  miniature  hand  lies  as  a  paper- 
weight on  modern  tables  and  as  a  tablet  on  the  wristlace 
of  our  ladies.  The  selection  of  odd  forms  of  roots  by  the 
people  of  the  Abbeville  bogs  is  paralleled  by  the  selection 
of  bizarre  laurel-root  walking-sticks  by  modern  young  men. 
And  the  same  love  of  the  rare  and  beautiful  which  sets  so 
high  a  value  on  the  emerald  and  diamond  now,  caused  the 
Stone  ao-e  savas'e  to  strins;  too-ether  round  his  neck  the 
flonting  bits  of  amber  which  he  saw  and  to  perforate  and 
hang  about  his  loins  beautiful  small  shells.  The  same 
feelings  induced,  the  Druid  warrior  to  wrap  a  golden  torque 
around  his  arm  that  induces  an  underbi'cd  American  to 
set  three  California  nuggets  in  his  shirtstuds.  The  per- 
petual scai'ch  for  proper  and  perfect  slingstones  must  have 
cultivated  to  the  highest  pitch  and  at  the  earliest  periods 
man's  faculty  for  form  and  colour  in  the  materials  of  art. 

*  See  the  story  in  detail,  in  Grimm's  Life  of  Miehael  Angelo,  Bunnet's 
translation,  vol.  i.  pp.  158—160.     (Little  and  Brown,  Boston,  1SG5.) 


VIII.]  AnCHITECTURE.  189 

Some  of  tlie  works  of  sav^agcs  strike  us  with  astonisliment, 
such  as  the  perforation  of  the  precious  stones  by  the  in- 
habitants of  Central  America.  But  we  must  remember 
that  the  savage  was  never  in  a  hurry  ;  time  was  not  money 
then ;  and  what  was  made  was  kept  and  valued  long.  The 
ivory  work  of  the  Chinese  is  quite  as  wonderful. 

But  wh^  should  we  waste  time  with  the  earlier  stages  of 
man's  effort  to  express  his  appreciation  of  the  forms  of 
nature  ?  We  have  in  architecture  the  summation  of  all  his 
efforts  ;  the  trial  of  his  matured  powers  ;  the  efflorescence 
net  only  of  his  taste  for  form  and  colour  but  of  his  sense  of 
grandeur  and  sublimity,  of  his  ideas  of  the  invisible  powers 
by  which  he  is  surrounded,  and  of  his  hopes  of  future  hap- 
piness. 

I  wish  to  confine  this  lecture  chiefly  to  a  discussion  of 
the  rise  and  meaning  of  ancient  architecture.  And  I  shall 
use  the  term  architecture  in  its  most  ancient  and  not  in  its 
more  modern  sense.  No  two  meanings  attached  to  the 
same  word  could  well  be  more  different.  To  the  imagina- 
tion of  a  man  of  the  19th  century  the  word  architecture 
conjures  up  a  splendid  vista  of  roofs  and  towers  with 
battlements  or  spii-es,  castles  and  churches,  palaces  and 
stores  with  marble  fronts  and  decorated  windows  from  the 
pavement  to  the  eave ;  parliament  houses  and  city  hall?  in 
parks  laid  out  for  public  recreation ;  hotels  of  a  thousand 
separate  rooms ;  vast  railway  stations,  each  blocking  up 
the  end  of  some  wide  avenue,  one  exit  of  the  city  with 
long  hanging  vaults  of  wood  and  iron  under  which  inter- 
minable  trains  of  cars  may  load  and  unload  thousands  of 
travellers  ;  factories,  mountainous  piles  of  furnace-stack 
and  hollow  archways,  girt  with  gigantic  flues  and  capped 
with  curious  brickwork,  black  iron  cylinders  vomiting  fare, 
and  taller  chimneys  smoking  in  the  upper  air;  bridges 
like  spider-webs  and  viaducts  with  wonderful  arcades 
spanning  the  streams ;  observatories  crowned  with  domes 
like  eastern  mosques  ;  theatres  and  halls  for  music  with 
organs  seeming  like  the  slumbering  winds  of  Eolus  wait- 
ing to  rouse  the  world  ;  great,  many-storied  public  schools, 
each  with  its  tide  of  life  ebbing  and  flowing  with  tumultu- 
ous regularity  four  times  each  day  as  if  they  were  the 
ventricles  of  a  great  nation's  heart :  all  these  and  innumer- 
able private  residences  and  villas  urban  and  suburban,  in 


190  THE    ORIGIN    OP  [lECT. 

streets,,  on  hill-tops^  and  beside  the  shore,  or  buried  in 
sweet  vales  ;  all  these  combine  to  make  up  architecture 
now. 

In  ancient  times  it  was  not  so,  'J'he  so-called  ancients, 
Greeks  and  Romans  of  the  times  of  Christ,  only  2000  years 
ago,  they  had  their  architects  for  triumphal  arches,  aque- 
ducts, bridges,  forts  and  palaces,  as  well  as  for  religious 
.shrines.  Even  the  Assyrians  and  Babylonians  of  an  age  a 
thousand  years  earlier  built  palaces  as  well  as  temples ;  if 
their  palaces  were  not  indeed  their  only  temples,  as  their 
kings  were  named  after  and  worshipped  for  their  gods. 
But  in  the  real  old  ancient  times  preceding  all  those  really 
modern  or  grandly  mediaeval  histories,  I  mean  the  times 
of  ancient  Egypt,  the  times  when  British  Stonehenge  and 
the  Armorican  Caruak  and  the  North  African  cromlechs 
and  the  Cyclopean  walls  of  Italy  and  Greece  were  built; 
in  those  old  days  there  was  nothing  but  religious  architec- 
ture. The  people  lived  in  tents  or  cottages.  Their  kings 
were  merely  chieftains,  heads  of  tribes,  living  among 
their  people  like  Arab  sheiks,  or  like  the  kings  in  Western 
Africa.  How  many  ages  from  the  beginning  passed  before 
the  building  of  temples  began,  we  cannot  know.  All  be- 
fore the  rise  of  architecture  was  an  age  of  unconscious  art, 
mixed  with  uncertain  superstitions ;  an  age  of  fetichism 
with  its  vulgar  sorceries,  like  those  which  form  the  sole 
religious  ceremonies  of  our  Esquimaux  ;  and  with  its  rude 
stone  idols,  wooden  painted  posts,  sacred  trees,  haunted 
mounds   and  amulets. 

The  original  root  of  all  architecture  can  be  found  in  the 
sepulchral  mound.  The  Druid  barrow  or  the  Tartar  tumu- 
lus became  first  the  pyramid,  then  the  propylon  of  the 
Egyptian  temple,  then  the  pagoda  of  India  and  China  and 
finally  the  Parthenon  and  Pantheon  of  Greece  and  Italy. 
The  pyramids  of  Nubia  and  Egypt,  with  one  exception 
and  that  one  not  undisputed,  ai'e  undoubtedly  the  Mausolea 
of  the  early  Pharaohs ;  while  all  the  other  primeval  Egyp- 
tian monuments  are  private  tombs.  The  earlier  Egyptian 
temples  were  avowedly  erected  in  honour  of  deceased 
monarchs  by  their  sons.  The  custom  was  transplanted 
from  the  soil  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile  to  all  surrounding 
lands.  The  Mausoleum  at  Halicarnassus  in  Asia  Minor 
was  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.     No  trace  of  it  re- 


VTIT.j  ARCHITECTURE.  191 

mains.  But  the  vast  tomb  of  Massinissa  in  Numidia  200 
yards  in  diameter  and  the  tomb  of  Hadrian  at  Rome  still 
challenge  the  admiration  of  mankind.  But  why  select  ex- 
amples here  and  there  when  the  grave-mounds  of  forgotten 
princes  covered  the  entire  surface  of  the  earth,  and  furnish 
to  our  antiquaries  their  oldest  and  most  precious  curiosi- 
ties. Nor  is  it  needful  to  go  back  to  the  youthful  days  of 
Mitzraim  to  study  fragments  which  escaped  the  iconoclastic 
hammer  of  Cambyses  only  to  be  submerged  by  the  Libyan 
or  Arabian  sands.  The  greatest  living  empire  of  the  world 
is  to-day  practising  and  illustrating  throughout  its  16  pro- 
vinces, each  one  a  mighty  kingdom  in  itself,  that  architec- 
ture of  ancestor  worship  which,  having  antedated,  will 
survive  and  swallow  up  all  other  works  of  men.  The  tombs 
of  the  Ming  dynasty  near  Pekin  show  that  the  self-same  sen- 
timents and  ideas  continue  to  rule  the  human  heart  and 
direct  the  artistes  hand  which  called  into  magnificent  ex- 
istence five  thousand  years  ago  the  Colossi  of  AlniSimbil 
and  the  Necropolis  of  Thebes,  A  thousand  things  in  Chi- 
nese life  impress  the  traveller  strangely  with  the  devotion 
of  the  entire  nation  to  these  tender  and  reverential  tastes 
and  feelings  for  the  dead.  To  the  father  nothing  is  refused. 
The  most  acceptable  present  that  a  son  can  make  him  is  a 
coffin.  He  knows  that  death  will  be  no  bar  to  his  advance- 
ment in  honours,  for  the  merit  of  his  child  will  illuminate 
his  name.  Nobility  is  not  prospective  but  retrospective  in 
the  Central  kingdom.  The  hero's  deeds,  the  sage's  wisdom, 
the  statesman's  success  ennobles  not  his  descendants  but  his 
ancestry.  The  degenerate  barbarism  of  Europe  has  sub- 
stituted the  sordid  interests  of  property  for  gratitude  and 
piety. 

Ancestor  worship,  or  the  homage  which  the  living  offer 
to  the  dead,  is  not  only  the  most  extensive  but  the  only  uni- 
versal form  of  religion  upon  the  earth,  and  the  oldest  of 
which  any  traces  remain  in  early  history.  It  was  natural, 
therefore,  that  the  first  tomb  should  be  the  first  temple, 
and  vice  versa.  That  desire  to  live  which  was  given  to 
mankind  in  common  with  the  other  animals  as  a  safeguard 
to  his  life  contained  within  it  germs  of  thought  and  senti- 
ment which  were  in  process  of  time  developed  into  a  thirst 
for  immortality.  This  caused  the  living  to  erect  their  own 
tombs ;    and   civilization   has    done    little   to   chancjje    the 


192  THE    ORIGIN    OF  [lECT. 

ancient  custom.  True^  circumstances  may  render  indi- 
viduals reckless,  and  if  long  enough  adverse  and  charged 
with  sufficient  misery  may  even  obliterate  from  families 
and  tribes  the  acquired  instinct  of  ancestral  worship. 
Livingstone  represents  the  Makololo  as  totally  careless 
about  the  bodies  of  their  dead  and  hostile  to  every  re- 
membrance of  their  past  existence.*  Yet  such  are  rare  ex- 
ceptions to  the  general  rule. 

In  ancient  days  the  father  was  not  only  the  giver  of  life 
but  the  lawgiver  who  could  order  it  away.  Abraham  sa- 
crificing Isaac  to  Jehovah,  or  sending  away  Ishmael  and 
his  mother  into  the  desert ;  Jephthah  paroling  his  daughter 
for  a  month ;  the  king  of  Moab  slaying  his  first-born  on  the 
city  wall  in  sight  of  the  hosts  of  Israel : — we  read  these 
stories  so  often  that  they  cease  to  make  their  natural  im- 
pression on  us.  The  ancient  father  was  in  fact  both  family 
priest  and  king ;  and  when  he  died  he  became  the  family 
deity.  The  chief  of  a  tribe  was  but  the  greater  father  of  a 
larger  family ;  and  when  he  died  a  grander  fane  arose  in 
homage  of  his  power  and  virtues.  I  am  not  one  of  those 
who  entertain  the  theory  that  all  the  deities  of  ancient 
times  were  monarchs  or  benefactors  or  emigrratins"  chief- 
tains  deified.  No  !  the  worship  of  a  man  ceased  with  the 
generation  who  succeeded  him,  as  only  one  pope  at  a  time 
can  occupy  the  sarcophagus  over  the  doorway  in  St  Peter's. 
But  nevertheless  there  is  no  denying  or  mistaking  the 
combined  action  of  the  two  causes  which  I  have  just  named 
upon  the  rise  of  architecture,  viz.  the  man^s  own  desire  for 
an  eternal  mansion,  and  the  honours  which  his  children 
voted  him. 

The  most  ancient  specimens  of  architecture  whose  date 
we  know  are  certain  tombs  of  Memphis  which  M.  Mariette 
has  recently  uncovered  from  the  sands  of  the  great  plain, 
on  the  edge  of  which  stand  their  next  descendants  in 
architectural  age,  the  pyramids.  These  tombs  were  built 
originally  like  the  houses  of  a  city  in  rows,  separated  by 
narrow  streets,  some  of  which  are  cul-de-sacs  or  courts. 
The  tombs  themselves  have  all  one  form,  that  of  a  small 
pylon   or  truncated  pyramid  ;  the  facade,  or  front  towards 

*  See  Livingstone's  curious  account  of  '  hiding  the  dead  '  on  the  Zam- 
besi. 


VIII.]  ARCHITECTURE.  193 

the  street,  decorated  with  long  prismatic  mouldings,  ter- 
minate iu  lotus  leaves  tied  together  by  the  peduncles. 
This  is  M.  Kenan's  description  and  he  refers  for  illustra- 
tion to  Lepsius'  Denkmaeler  aus  ^gypten  und  .^thiopien, 
prem.  part,  pi  25,  26.  You  will  hereafter  see  the  import- 
ance of  this  ornamentation  to  a  correct  theory  of  archi- 
tecture ;  but  at  present  let  me  continue  the  description 
of  these  interesting  monuments.  The  door  of  each  tomb 
is  very  narrow,  and  never  in  the  centre  of  the  front.  Over 
it  is  cut  the  hieroglyphic  guitar,  a  cylindrical  drum  or 
tabret,  carrying  the  name  of  the  dead.  Here  he  lives  for 
evermore,  always  at  home.  It  is  his  '  everlasting  home,* 
the  very  term  the  old  Egyptians  used  to  designate  a  tomb. 
And  the  interior  arrano^ement  ao^reed  with  this  idea.  It 
was  arranged  for  the  reception  of  his  surviving  friends  on 
certain  days  of  the  year.  Therefore  in  the  oldest  times — 
at  the  extreme  dawn  of  history — the  first — absolutely  the 
first  scene  which  is  presented  to  our  eyes  is  precisely 
that  which  the  modern  traveller  beholds  when  ho  visits  on 
All  Souls'  Day  the  Parisian  cemetery  of  Pere  la  Chaise, 
or  the  tombs  of  the  Ming  dynasty  near  Pekin.  Ancestral 
worship  was  the  first  and  will  be  the  last  religion  of  man- 
kind. 

Entering  now  one  of  these  old  Memphite  tombs  one  sees 
engraved  upon  the  walls  the  master  of  the  house  in  the 
bosom  of  his  family  ;  his  wife,  his  children,  his  servants, 
his  scribes,  his  household  furniture  around  him.  His  own 
portrait  in  bas-relief  occupies  the  post  of  honour  and  is 
commonly  repeated  in  several  places;  while  a  large  stele 
or  obelisk-like  pyramid  gives  his  titles  and  sometimes 
his  biography,  his  characteristic  traits,  even  his  infirmities, 
to  ensure  the  continuance  of  his  personality.  How  strong 
must  have  been  the  lust  for  immortality  which  ruled  the 
breasts  of  those  old  people  !  I  mentioned  in  a  former 
lecture  with  what  detail  the  agricultural  habits  and  man- 
ners, tools  and  animals  of  this  primitive  Egyptian  race 
was  given  in  these  family  picture-galleries ;  and  how  no 
trace  of  war  or  of  religion  is  apparent  in  them. 

This  we  must  dwell  on  here  a  little,  not  to  discuss  the 
origin  of  the  religious  sentiment  or  its  realization  in  wor- 
ship, to  which  I  shall  devote  a  future  lecture,    but  for  the 

J3 


194  THE    ORIGIN    OF  [lKOT. 

bearing  of  the  fact  upon  the  theory  of  architecture.  In 
these  tombs  we  find,  I  say,  no  trace  of  those  chapters  of 
the  ritnal  of  the  dead,  which  under  subsequent  dynasties 
of  kings  and  priests  in  Egypt  came  at  last  to  constitute 
the  obHgatory  ornamentation  of  all  tombs.*  In  the  an- 
cienter  times  of  the  Memphite  tomb-builders  the  deity 
seems  to  have  had  neither  name  nor  image.  The  dog 
Anubis,  on  whom  the  trinitarian  spirit  of  a  later  date  be- 
stowed three  heads,  the  Cerberus  of  Greek  mythology, 
appears  indeed  upon  the  walls  as  the  guardian  or  watch- 
dog of  the  tomb.  But  where  is  Osiris  —  that  special 
funeral  god  of  the  later  dynasties  ?  For  these  more  ancient 
Memphite  '  everlasting  homes  '  he  has  as  yet  no  existence. 
They  are  in  no  respects  funereal  chapels  consecrated  to  a 
divinity.  Death  is  the  only  deity  acknowledged  here. 
We  are  in  the  rear  of  all  mythologies ;  behind  the  curtain 
the  drama  of  religion  has  not  yet  commenced.  We  are 
still  in  the  primeval  age  of  man's  existence  upon  earth 
before  the  birth  of  kingdoms  and  priesthoods  as  we  know 
those  things  ;  yet  also  at  the  end  of  that  great  age,  just 
when  it  is  about  to  breed  another  age  and  pass  itself  into 
its  '  everlasting  home.'' 

Bvit  we  have  here  true  architecture  and  the  fine  arts 


*  '  The  tombs  of  Memphis  are  all  dated  in  the  six  first  dynasties  ;  and 
without  this  they  would  still  indicate  their  relative  age  by  their  style  and 
the  order  of  their  ideas.  Compare  them  with  the  grottoes  of  Beni  Hassan 
(2500  B.C.)  where  the  ideas  are  the  same,  death  the  only  deity  of  an  eter- 
nal home,  a  grand,  gay  chamber  alive  with  pictures,  but  with  neither 
superstitions  nor  terrors.  Then  compare  them  witli  the  tombs  of  Biban- 
el-molouk,  near  Thebes  (1500  B.C.),  and  see  the  sudden  and  complete; 
change  !  A.  Christian  and  a  pagan  tomb  could  not  more  differ.  The  dead  is 
no  longer  at  home  ;  a  pantheon  of  gods  have  usurped  his  place;  images  of 
Osiris,  and  chapters  of  the  ritual  cover  the  walls  ;  graved  with  a  care  as  if 
the  world  must  read  them,  and  yet  shut  up  in  everlasting  darkness,  but 
supernaturally  powerful.  Horrible  fictions,  the  foolishest  vagaries  of  the 
human  brain.  The  priest  has  got  the  better  of  the  situation ;  these 
death-trials  are  good  alms  for  him,  he  can  abridge  the  poor  soul's  tor- 
ments. What  a  nightmare  is  this  tomb  of  Scthos  !  How  far  we  have  got 
from  the  primeval  iaith  in  death  and  survivance  after  it,  without  the  cere- 
monial of  the  priest,  or  long  list  of  names  divine,  ending  in  sordid  super- 
stition. One  of  our  Gothic  cathedrals  differs  less  from  one  of  the  tomb.s 
on  the  Appian  Way  than  do  the  old  tombs  of  Sakkara  from  those  which 
fill  the  strange  valley  of  Biban-el-molouk.'     (R^nan.) 


Till.]  ABCHITECTURE.  195 

already  born  ;  nay   more,  already  perfect  m   one  of  their 
careers. 

Nothing,  in  fact,  would  so  thoroughly  dispel  the  scep- 
ticism of  religious  people  respecting  the  antiquity  of  man- 
kind as  a  good  examination  of  these  monuments.  They  say 
themselves  that  they  belong  to  the  first  dynasties  of  Egypt, 
and  yet  their  construction  is  as  perfectly  beautiful  as  if 
they  bore  over  their  doors  names  of  the  monarchs  of  the 
18th  or  22nd  dynasties  2000  years  later  of  date.  What  is 
so  astonishiug,  so  bewildering,  is  this  :  that  art  and  archi- 
tecture when  ice  see  it  first  is  in  its  full  maturity.  The 
painting,  carving  and  building-arts  (to  judge  by  these 
Memphite  tombs)  have  had  apparently  no  infancy.  And 
it  is  only  by  turning  from  Egypt  to  other  lands,  and  from 
these  wonderful  treasures  preserved  beneath  the  sand  to 
the  Cyclopean  walls,  to  the  circles  of  standing  stones  and 
to  the  Drnid  l)arrows  that  we  are  reminded  of  those  vast 
stretches  of  time  before  Memphis  and  its  people  had  ex- 
istence, ages  of  night  and  wandering  for  races  of  mankind 
whose  only  monuments  were  some  stray  boulder  poised 
npon  a  hill,  or  some  smooth  rock  beside  a  stream  on 
which  they  could  engrave  a  few  rude  effigies ; — races 
which  have  all  perished  without  one  name  engraved  in 
legible  characters  ;  without  one  shrine  to  keep  alive  the 
remembrance  of  a  single  deity. 

But  were  vve  to  dogmatise  in  this  fashion  about  the  early 
and  sudden  blooming  out  of  Egyptian  art  or  Chinese 
civilization  as  if  they  were  created  perfect  and  had  no  be- 
ginning simply  because  we  can  find  no  records  of  such 
beginning  we  must  forget  that  a  record  is  impossible 
without  a  scribe  to  make  it.  Mankind  without  arts  have 
no  means  of  recording  the  history  of  their  arts.  Ai't  is  a 
self-recording  instrument  indeed,  but  not  until  it  is  itself 
completed.  And  when  we  examine  the  Egyptian  record  a 
little  closer  we  can  perceive  in  it  a  confession  of  improve- 
ment and  progress  which  relieves  us  of  historical  embar- 
rassment. If  Mariette  can  say  of  the  fourth  dynasty  that 
its  opening  reigns  yield  us  prodigies  of  an  unexampled 
civilization,  unexampled  at  that  moment  in  the  workl,  a 
society  definitely  constituted,  a  development  of  art  at  a 
height  hardly  to  be  topped  by  the  most  brilliant  epochs 
afterwards,  and  an  architecture  elegant,  he  must  add  that 


196  THE   ORIGIN    OF  [lECT. 

all  this  marks  a  sudden  and  extraordinary  movement  the 
cause  of  which  is  hidden  from  our  research ;  and  we  must 
remember  that  three  dynasties  had  preceded,  numbering 
as  many  centuries  as  have  elapsed  between  the  Norman 
conquest  and  the  present  day ;  time  enough  one  would 
imagine  for  the  growth  of  all  the  arts  and  all  the 
sciences. 

It  is  admirable  to  see  with  what  fidelity  the  builders  of 
the  Memphite  tombs  did  all  their  work.  It  reminds  one 
of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  builders  of  the  Middle  Ages.  And 
yet  M.  Mariette  has  distinguished  in  the  early  tombs  of 
Egypt  three  classes.  The  most  ancient,  like  that  of  Amten, 
exhibit  art  and  literature  in  process  of  formation,  the 
hieroglyphs  widely  separated  (clair-seme)  and  in  relief. 
Rude  forms  abound.  The  statues  are  thick  and  short,  with 
all  their  anatomical  details  exaggerated.  The  second  class, 
the  best  example  of  which  is  Ti's  tomb  at  Saqqarah,  are 
better  placed,  with  hieroglyphs  less  boldly  striking  and 
more  harmoniously  grouped,  making  the  text  more  legible. 
The  alphabetic  element  begins  little  by  little  to  substitute 
itself  for  the  syllabic,  which  forms  so  lai-ge  a  part  of  the 
older  legends.  Ascending  genealogies  become  rare.  The 
foi'mulee  of  invocation  are  addressed  to  Anubis  alone. 
The  third  class,  contemporary  with  the  6th  dynasty,  begin 
to  show  the  name  of  Osiris,  and  the  formula  of  justifica- 
tion, in  text  more  lengthened  out,  with  beautiful  forms  of 
prayer  and  biographical  recitals  to  vary  a  little  the  mo- 
notony of  representation.  In  these,  and  in  the  tombs  of 
the  second  class  of  the  time  of  Ti,  are  found  those  beautiful 
and  smoothly  worked-out  statues,  with  visage  round  and 
smiling  mouth,  fine  nose,  large  shoulders  and  stout  limbs 
which  form  so  numerous  and  precious  a  collection  in  the 
Boulaq  Museum.  And  in  these  tombs  are  also  found  those 
enormous  monolithic  steles  cut  into  the  form  of  a  facade  of 
which  the  Museum  has  so  rich  a  collection  also.  These 
are,  then,  the  three  stages  of  the  oldest  Egyptian  art. 
Then  came  a  long  break,  perhaps  the  Dark  Ages  of  the 
ancient  empii'e.  We  pass  down  through  five  more  centu- 
ries to  the  11th  dynasty,  when  a  Renaissance  appears,  with 
Isis  for  its  deity,  and  marks  which  cut  it  off"  from  any  di- 
rect inheritance  from  the  art  that  had  preceded  it  by  so 
long  an  interval.     The  steles,  formerly  square  at  top,  have 


nil.]  ARCITITKCTURE.  197 

now  become  rounded.  The  hieroglyphics  have  a  particu- 
lar awkwardness  resembling  not  at  all  those  of  the  tombs 
of  the  3rd  dynasty.  The  sarcophagi  are  also  different, 
and  colours  are  in  vogue.  Then  comes  the  splendid  age 
of  obeli.skSj  colossal  statues,  grand  grotto-temples,  and  all 
that  make  the  borders  of  the  Nile  and  Thebes  the  wonder 
of  the  world. 

I  once  enjoyed  the  rare  opportunity  of  getting  upon 
the  roof  of  the  Sainte  Chapelle  in  Paris  in  company 
of  the  architect  to  whom  was  intrusted  the  superintend- 
ence of  its  restoration  under  Louis  Philipe.  After  I  had 
feasted  my  eyes  upon  that  glorious  panorama — which  I 
think  is  finer  from  this  point  of  view  than  from  the  top 
of  Notre  Dame — I  occupied  myself  with  the  bits  of  carving 
which  surround  the  pinnacles  of  the  buttresses  and  which 
are  entirely  invisible  to  persons  in  the  street, — hundreds 
of  leaves  and  flowers  and  delicate  morsels  of  fretwork^ 
which  no  eye  had  seen  for  centuries,  even  since  the  stone- 
cutters had  hoisted  the  blocks  unchiselled  to  their  places^ 
and  yet  as  nicely  wrought  as  if  they  were  intended  for 
the  doorway  in  the  porch.  And  I  could  not  help  asking 
myself  the  question.  When  will  our  architects  get  such  a 
conscience  as  those  old  masons  had?*  And  I  wondered 
also  when  the  time  would  come  for  a  public  taste  impatient 
of  our  meretricious  sham  shop-fronts  on  Chesnut-street  or 
Broadway,  showing  their  ragged  edges  and  unfinished 
cornice-ends  and  soft  brick  side  walls  up  and  down  the 
street  as  shamelessly  as  harlots  in  the  evening  flaunt  their 
tawdry. 

The  old  Memphite  tombs  were  built  to  last,  and  to  last 
beautiful.  They  were  to  be  homes  always.  They  bore  no 
resemblance  at  all  to  our  family  tombs  crowded  with 
coffins,  hideous  with  mildew  and  fungous  vegetation, 
generating  horrors  of  the  imagination  to  be  surpassed 
only  by  those  which  breed  within  the  modern  so-called 
Christian  doctrine  of  eternal  damnation.  There  is  nothing 
to  suggest  the  Columbaria  or  pigeon-cote  burial-places  of 
the  Hebrews,  Phoenicians  and  Christians  of  the  Roman  day; 
nor  those  vast  catacombs  in  which  whole  consfres-ations 

n  •  •  •  •  O  O 

of  believers  in  a  future  life  were  laid  away  to  sleep  together 

•  See  Kenan's  beautiful  description  of  this  perfect  conscientious  art,  p 
673  (Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1st  April,  1865). 


198  THE    ORlCIN    OF  [lECT. 

until  the  archangels  trump  should  wake  them  up  together 
for  the  judgment-day. 

The  Egyptian  farmer^s  soul  lived  all  alone  in  his  '  eternal 
mansion/  Each  tomb  was  individual.  Except  in  some 
few  cases  even  the  wife  had  no  admission  with  her  husband 
to  it.  He  was  satisfied  with  her  picture  among  those  of 
all  his  other  domestic  animals.  Except  on  the  solemn 
anniversary  the  narrow  door  was  shut,  and  darkness  ob- 
literated the  pictures  except  to  the  departed  ghost.  He 
was  supposed  to  regale  himself  wnth  the  offered  fruits  and 
cooked  food  which  his  friends  left  in  his  chamber.  Some 
of  these  touching  proofs  that  love  and  veneration  have 
always  swelled  the  human  bosom  have  remained  there  un- 
touched all  those  thousands  of  years  until  M.  Mariette 
opened  once  more  the  doors. 

But  the  prime  point  for  our  reflection  is  the  fact  that 
there  is  nothing  of  the  tomb  about  these  tombs  ;  they  are 
houses — homes.  They  feared  but  one  thing — disturbance. 
With  what  horror  must  the  ejection  from  his  tomb  have  been 
contemplated  by  the  old  man  of  the  Nile !  The  possible  loss 
of  his  hereditary  lands  could  not  more  shock  an  English 
nobleman.  To  be  turned  out  and  sent  adrift  homeless 
for  ever,  a  poor  ghost  unable  to  build  but  once  and  never 
more  !  Imagine  his  feelings  in  view  of  such  an  irreme- 
diable and  infinite  calamity  !  I  believe  that  these  Egyptian 
sentiments,  entertained  as  they  were  by  all  the  early  races 
of  mankind,  were  the  originals  of  all  those  superstitions  of 
Hades  and  haunted  places  and  uneasy  spirits  which 
exist  to-day.  How  diflfei-ent  the  dying  Christian's  thoughts ! 
To  him  there  is  no  isolation  in  the  tomb.  He  sees 
heaven  opened,  and  flies  to  join  the  great  congregation  of 
the  first-born  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  who  rules  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  under  the  new  dispensation.  And 
as  the  old  Egyptians  had  the  idea  of  immortality,  so  even 
the  cave-dwellers  of  the  south  of  France  must  have  been 
led  by  it  to  make  their  burnt-oflerings  to  the  dead,  as  M. 
Lartet  has  shown.  The  peculiarity  of  Christianity  consists 
in  the  fact  that  it  was  both  life  and  immortality  which  were 
brought  to  light  by  Jesus  Christ. 

The  care  with  which  the  body  of  the  dead  was  preserved 
in  a   sarcophagus,*  and  the  care   with   which  the   sareo- 

*  The  sarcooliagus  is  an  immense  cube  of  granite  or  white  marble,  the 


VIIT.]  ARCHITECTURE.  199 

phagus  was  concealed  in  a  chamber  of  its  own  nearly  100 
feet  underground,  approached  by  a  well  sunk  in  the  thickest 
part  of  the  masonry^  and  then  by  a  horizontal  gallery  so 
arranged  as  to  make  it  extremely  difficult  to  discover  the 
whereabouts  of  the  sarcophagus — all  show  how  dreadful 
an  idea  the  profanation  or  disturbance  of  his  body  must 
have  been  to  the  living  Egyptian.*  To  derange  his  repose 
was  to  compromise  his  eternal  salvation.  How  his  body 
was  to  share  in  his  soul's  immortality  pei'haps  was  never 
a  clearly  formulated  dogma  in  the  Egyptian  creed,  if  there 
was  such  a  creed.  But  mummification  became  afterwards 
one  of  the  fine  arts  and  combined  sculpture  and  painting 
with  all  the  most  shameless  tricks  both  of  priestcraft  and 
of  trade.  It  would  be  a  perfect  farce  to  tell  you  of  the 
shrewd  devices  of  the  Egyptian  undertakers  in  a  later  age, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  grim  mistakes  which  have  been  made 
in  lecture-rooms  in  this  country.  I  remember  when  a 
mummy-case  purporting  to  be  that  of  a  Pharaoh's  daughter 
was  solemnly  opened  and  unwrapped  before  a  crowded 
audience  ;  I  think  Mr  Agassiz  was  present  and  took  part 
in  the  proceedings ;  the  case  contained  the  body  of  a  boy, 
and  nobody  has  ever  been  able  to  explain  the  misad- 
venture except  on  general  principles — that  the  Egyptian 
undertakers  were  great  rascals. 

In  the  earliest  times  there  were  also  images  made  of  the 
deceased,  but  they  were  exquisitely  well  done,  and  the 
sole  intention  seems  to  have  been  to  preserve  the  personal 
identity  of  the  departed,  to  make  sure  that  his  ownership 
of  his  own  '  everlasting  home  '  could  always  be  identified 
that  no  false  claimant  might  ever  eject  him  from  it.  These 
images  are  now  found  concealed  in  little  wells  in  the  masonry 
of  the  tomb.     The  number  of  them  already  collected  is 

walls  of  which  are  sometimes  decorated  with  prism-shaped  reeds 
(rainures),  and  other  ornaments  analogous  to  those  of  the  fai  ade  of  the 
torab. 

*  The  same  spirit  presides  over  the  queer  construction  of  the  pyramids. 
Each  was  the  inaccessible,  eternal  home  of  a  king.  Their  entrances  were 
never  in  the  middle  of  a  side,  and  carefully  sealed  up.  The  galleries 
within  were  filled  with  rocks,  from  the  tumbling  in  of  the  root's,  after 
accomplishing  which  the  workmen  escaped  by  curiously  constructed  shafts 
of  exit.  These  precautions  were  so  successful  that  the  chamber  of  Cheops 
was  not  reached  by  any  explorer  until  the  days  of  Caliph  Mamoud,  5000 
years  and  more  after  it  was  built.     (Kenan.) 


200  THE    ORIGIN    OP  [l-ECT. 

very  great.  Some  are  of  wood,  some  of  granite,  some  of 
marble.  One,  to  be  seen  in  the  IMuseum  of  Charleis  X* 
represents  a  scribe,  executed  with  the  minute  finesse  of  a 

*  Museum  of  Boulaq.  Some  are  in  the  Louvre.  '  It  is  ugly,  common, 
vulgar  assuredly,  but  nothing  ever  came  up  nearer  to  the  intention  of  the 
maker.  It  is  an  unequalled  prodigy,  this  wooden  statue  of  the  Museum 
of  Boulaq,  to  which  the  fellahs  gave  unanimously,  on  its  discovery,  the 
name  of  Scheickh-el-bilad,  "The  Village  Sheik."  It  is  the  statue  of  a 
certain  Phtah-se,  cousin  to  the  king.  His  wife's  statue  was  found  near 
it.  The  expression  of  na'if  contentment  spreading  itself  over  the  smiling 
figures  of  these  two  good  folks  is  plain  enough  to  see.  One  would  call 
them  two  Dutchmen  of  the  times  of  Louis  XIV.  One  may  not  doubt, 
looking  at  these  statues,  that  before  the  period  of  royal  despotism  and 
sumptuonsness,  Egypt  had  an  ej)Och  of  patriarchal  liberty.  The  pomp- 
ous olhcial  art  of  the  Thouthmes  and  the  Kameses  did  not  lower  itself  to 
represent  such  bouhommie  any  more  than  the  artists  of  Versailles  bent 
down  their  dignities  to  paint  "Magots"  (boobies,  puppies).  In  fact 
these  two  astonishing  morceuux  are  of  the  4th  or  .5th  dynasty.  Will  you 
say  that  here  we  have  primitive  art  starting  on  its  career  with  such  mi- 
nutiae? Consider  fir.st,  I  pray  you,  that  Egyptian  art  was  not  at  its 
debiit  hut  in  its  perfection  tiien.  What  is  most  extraordinary  in  this 
civilization  is,  that  it  had  no  infancy.  We  seek  in  vain  for  an  archaic 
period  of  Egyptian  art.  In  architecture  that  is  easy  enough  to  under- 
stand, for  it  finds  the  means  of  accomplisliing  its  desires  commonly  much 
sooner  than  the  plaster  arts  can  do  it.  But  for  sculpture  to  divest  itself 
of  all  rudeness  and  awkwardness  centuries  are  requisite.  Greece,  Italy  of 
the  middle  ages,  prove  it.  But  such  a  statue  as  that  of  Chephren,  of 
which  1  shall- soon  speak,  and  all  the  statues  of  the  ancient  empire,  are 
not  at  all  in  the  style  of  a  middle  age.  They  have  a  definite  style  of 
their  own.  Viewed  as  to  the  measure  of  the  nation's  genius,  they  could 
not  be  done  better.  Egypt  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  things,  contradicts 
the  laws  we  assign  to  the  Indo-Germanic  and  Shemitic  races.  She  begins 
her  career,  not  in  myth,  in  heroism,  in  barbarism.  She  is  a  China,  born 
mature,  almost  dtcreitit,  having  always  had  that  air  at  once  of  inl'amy  and 
age  which  her  monuments  and  her  history  reveal.  The  divine  youth  of  the 
Yavanas  (lonians,  Yavanasdones,  the  youths,  Juvenes)  was  ever  unknown 
to  her.  That  she  started  with  realism,  with  platitude,  does  not  amaze 
me  more  than  that  she  started  with  good  sense,  good  domestic  economy, 
the  right  sense  of  worthy  farmers,  knowing  exactly  the  number  of  their 
geese  and  asses.  We  are  not  here  on  the  soil  of  Homer  and  Phidias  ;  we 
are  in  the  land  of  clear  and  ra))id  conscience,  but  limited  and  stationary. 
Solon's  priest  of  Sais  thought  himself  sarcastic  when  he  said,  "  You  Greeks 
are  babies  ;  there  are  none  old  among  you;  you  are  all  young  in  spirit  :" 
but  it  was  the  profound  error  of  a  narrow-minded  conservative,  proud  of 
that  which  marked  his  own  inferiority.  It  is  permitted  man  not  to  be 
always  young,  but  it  is  needful  to  have  been  young  once.  These  intelligent 
guardians  of  dead  letters  could  not  see  what  made  the  force  and  beauty  of 
Greece,  as  many  a  heavy  spirit  of  our  days  thinks  that  he  has  exhausted 
language  against  France  when  he  has  affixed  to  her  name  the  epithet  of 
revolutionary.' — Renan. 


Tin.]  ARCidTECTDEE,  201 

perfect  realism    which  refers   us  to   more  ancient  times 
when  savages  criticised  tlie  forms  of  nature  with  no  aesthetic 
sentiment   but  with  the  interest  of  life  and  death.     Hence 
we  have  in  these  images  an  ethnographic  precision   like 
that  of  Chinese  or  any  other  cultivated  but  unideal  art. 

Let  us  reflect  a  moment.  "Wherein  does  the  savage  of 
primeval  times  most  differ  from  the  philosophic  citizen  of 
modern  Boston  ?  Is  it  not  in  this — that  life  and  nature 
and  art  and  thought  were  to  the  savage  man  all  in  detail ; 
but  to  the  civilized  are  in  the  general  ?  As  the  savage 
spent  his  time  alone,  spearing  one  fish^  luring  one  bird, 
trapping  one  animal,  whittling  out  one  arrow  at  a  time, 
measuring  the  ground  with  single  paces,  skulking  from 
tree  to  tree  and  stopping  behind  each — so  all  natural  and 
primitive  art  must  be  detailed,  precise,  and  characteristic 
of  siuorle  individual  forms  and  movements.  We  on  the 
contrary,  we  civilized  people,  live  in  crowds.  Our  cities 
are  aggregates  of  houses,  even  with  walls  and  roofs  in 
common.  Our  furniture  is  made  by  machinery  and  shovel- 
led into  our  life  by  the  million.  We  have  lost  all  idea 
of  distance  in  miles  and  furlongs,  like  the  Irish  woman 
from  Boston  who  refused  to  believe  that  she  had  arrived 
at  the  West  Newton  station-platform,  protesting  that  '^if 
sheM  ha^  known  it  wasnH  any  further  than  that  she'd  ha* 
walked."  All  our  thinking  now  is  done  in  generals.  Science 
is  merely  generalization.  Hence  our  art  has  become  ab- 
stract also.  The  feeble  attempts  of  the  Pre-Eaphaelites 
only  show  how  utterly  disagreeable  to  the  genius  of  our 
day  would  be  a  return  to  the  individualization  and  charac- 
teristic detailed  particularity  of  the  first  stage  of  Egyptian 
art ;  when  every  man  built  his  own  tomb  and  every  image 
in  it  was  an  exact,  unflattering,  conscientious  portrait  of 
himself. 

One  more  reflection  before  we  proceed.  The  science  of 
the  fine  arts  is  the  science  of  beauty,  taste,  an  apprecia- 
tion of  the  fitness  of  things,  harmony,  proportion,  sym- 
metry or  rhyme,  and  alliteration  or  rhythm  — that  law  of 
all  laws  in  the  Cosmos,  the  law  of  pulsation,  vibration  or 
paroxysmal  repetition.  Now,  why  do  we  never  expect  taste 
from  a  savage;  and  why  do  we  count  taste  among  the  prime 
c  iteria  of  good-breeding?  Ethnologists  have  laid  down  a 
rule  for  themselves  in   estimating  the  relative  antiquity  of 


202      ,  THE    ORIGIN   OP  [lECT. 

their  discoveries.  If  the  objects  which  they  find  are  pohshed, 
they  consider  them  comparatively  recent ;  if  ruder,  more 
ancient ;  if  very  rude,  primeval.  But  what  right  have 
they  to  establish  such  a  canon  ?  Are  there  not  bad  masons 
a  plenty  laying  up  tumble-down  walls  to-day ;  and  miser- 
able sculptors  cutting  thousands  of  horrible  tombstones 
for  Mount  Auburn  and  Laurel  Hill  which  they  expect  the 
world  to  call  fine  monuments  ?  What  is  the  ground  for 
this  distinction  between  rude  and  polished  art  ?  I  will 
tell  you.  The  savage  has  bad  taste,  because  taste  is  that 
faculty  which  deals  with  the  true  relationships  of  things. 
Knowledge  therefore  cultivates  Taste ;  and  the  savage  is 
ignorant.  Not  the  knowledge  of  things  in  detail,  but  of 
things  in  their  relationships.  Nature  deals  in  what  we  call 
delicate  touches,  and  these  require  sharp  eyes  to  see — 
loving,  patient,  educated  eyes.  This  is  why  sorrow  refines 
the  soul.  Sorrow  is  ejection  from  self  into  the  world's 
wretchedness  ;  the  hurling  of  the  soul  from  its  vantage 
tower  of  isolation  down  upon  the  hard  pavements  and 
among  the  hostile  crowds  below.  Sorrow,  disaster,  teaches 
men  strange  bed-fellows,  enlarges  their  comprehension  of 
the  worlds  in  which  they  live  and  so  refines  them.  But 
even  this  source  of  refinement  the  savage  has  not ;  for  his 
sorrows  are  solitary ;  his  woes  annihilate  him  like  thunder- 
bolts ;  he  perishes  too  easily  ;  there  are  no  ameliorations 
in  his  lot ;  his  taste  continues  hard,  for  he  has  nothing 
about  him  but  the  raw  stuff  of  nature,  inexorably  cruel  to 
him,  playing  with  him  as  a  cat  plays  with  a  mouse,  and 
only  now  and  then  grimly  laughing  at  him  through  some 
odd  antic  or  queer  shape  of  the  animal  or  vegetable  king- 
dom. His  imitations  therefore  of  nature  must  be  gross, 
rude  and  individual.  He  has  had  neither  eyes  to  discover 
nor  tools  to  imitate  those  combinations  of  force  and  form 
which  constitute  nature ;  still  less  the  taste  to  feel  those 
delicate  ideals  of  all  forms,  those  Ariels  of  the  tempest  of 
this  earth-life,  floating  high  before  the  soul,  and  beautiful, 
and  musical  as  beautiful.  These  are  the  spirits  of  our 
architecture.  These  were  the  genii  of  Phidias  and  Prax- 
iteles, the  Prosperos  of  that  magic  Isle  of  Art,  at  whose 
command  sprang  up  the  divine  porticoes  of  the  Parthenon — 
that  Miranda  of  the  Island;  and  the  throe  thousand  statues 
of  the  Olympium  at  Elis — that  synod  of  all  man's  exquisite 


v'lTl.l  ARCHITECTURE.  203 

irnaginations,  that  symposium  of  all  forms  of  streugth  and 
beauty  realized  in  marble,  ivory   and  gold. 

But  even  Greece  was  not  well  bred  enough  to  compre- 
hend the  grander  combinations  of  a  later  day.  It  needed 
the  marriage  of  the  Classic  and  Teutonic  races  to  produce 
the  Gothic  cathedral.  And  when  the  time  was  fully  come, 
and  that  wondrous  world  of  reeded  piers  and  skyey  arches, 
buttresses  and  pinnacles,  towers  and  spires,  in  combination, 
like  the  solar  system,  or  the  framework  of  the  Christian 
church,  rose  above  the  grave  of  Ambrose  bishop  of  Milan, 
see  how  those  three  thousand  deities  of  ancient  Greece 
rose  too  from  their  old  seats  in  Elis  and  flew  to  perch 
upon  its  pinnacles.  Painters  came  journeying  from  every 
side  of  Christendom  to  hang  their  histories  of  angels, 
saints,  and  martyrs  on  its  piers.  Musicians  choired  for 
ever  in  its  chapels  as  naturally  as  nightingales  collect 
among  the  copses  of  the  Rhine.  Kings,  dukes  and  mer- 
chants built  between  its  buttresses  their  tombs,  or  decor- 
ated shrines  to  their  tutelary  saints  with  offerings  of  every 
precious  stone  and  work  of  art  whatever  they  could  find 
or  buy  or  steal  to  save  their  wretched  souls.  Emperors 
hung  up  along  its  vaulting  naves  the  tattered  ensigns  of 
their  vanquished  enemies.  Pilgrims  returned  from  Holy 
Land  and  poor  pale  women  convalescing  from  some  des- 
perate malady,  placed  there  their  shell  and  scrip  or  votive 
wax  light  or  bouquet  of  artificial  flowers.  In  times  of  war 
and  pestilence  the  multitude  from  the  surrounding  country 
rushed  to  the  cathedral  church  as  their  sure  ark  of  safety. 
God  shut  them  in.  The  deluge  might  rage  outside;  but 
they  were  safe.  They  called  it  therefore  going  into  the 
temple  Nave,  from  navis,  the  Latin  word  for  ship.  The  old 
Greeks  had  the  same  name  for  a  temple,  Naos,  because 
naus  was  the  Greek  for  ship.  Architecture  was  to  the 
ancients  not  the  building  of  arches  but  of  arks,  into  whicli 
the  suffering  crowds  might  be  led  when  troubles  rose  upon 
the  earth  and  men  despaired  of  living. 

Around  the  cathedral  the  whole  religious  hierarchy 
organized  itself.  On  one  side  stands  the  baptistry  by 
which  the  ark  is  entered  spiritually.  On  the  other  stands 
the  chapter-house  where  laws  are  made  to  govern  the 
church  and  regulate  its  services.  A  covered  way  in  one 
di"ection  leads  to  the  archbishop's  palace,  full  of  noble 


204  THE    ORIGIN    OP  [lECT. 

guests  from  every  land.  In  the  other  direction  stretch 
the  cloisters  of  recluses,  automata  by  which  the  ceremonial 
goes  on  with  all  the  rhythmical  steadiness  of  planetary 
motion ;  or  learned  men  who  keep  alive  the  old  traditions 
of  it ;  or  charitable  men  busy  about  the  hospitals  and  at 
bedsides,  almoners  of  the  Church's  charities,  or  preachers 
to  the  poor  and  hard-worked  million.  Then  in  its  vaults 
we  have  more  relationships — these  with  the  past;  sarco- 
phagi of  founders,  builders,  restorers,  rulers  of  the  Church ; 
the  relics  of  the  saints ;  caskets  of  precious  jewels  ;  boxes 
of  gold  and  silver  plate,  rich  vestments,  wealth  bequeathed 
for  the  care  of  its  roof  and  walls  and  all  its  numerous  uses. 
If  we  ascend  its  staircase  we  may  find  within  its  roof  a 
little  village  of  carpenters,  masons,  plumbers  and  glaziers 
always  occupied  in  keeping  the  vast  edifice  in  good  repair, 
— for  it  is  mortal  like  other  things  in  this  world,  and  if 
unwatched  would  fall  piecemeal  and  crumble  (like  some 
tall  cliff  or  mountain  cedar)  into  the  dust  again  from  which 
it  rose.  Happy  the  ancient  Memphite  tombs  over  whom 
the  sonsy  sands  were  spread  like  a  bed  of  snow  in  winter 
to  protect  the  grain  for  spring. 

I  have  given  you  this  picture  of  the  architecture  of  what 
we  misname  '  the  Middle  Ages '  (but  which  are,  as  to  the 
whole  world-history  of  man,,  the  modern  times  in  which  we 
actually  live)  in  order  to  show  that  the  development  of  art 
consists  in  these  complex  relationships ;  that  a  cathedral 
temple  has  gTown  up  like  a  mountain  mass,  by  the  addi- 
tion of  layer  upon  layer,  formation  upon  formation,  all 
different  and  yet  closely  related ;  by  successive  additions 
of  great  ideas  — ideas  bred  of  civilization,  of  many  super- 
imposed civilizations;  ideas  produced  by  the  conflux  of 
human  interests  ;  correlated  ideas  of  state  policy,  religious 
sentiment  and  family  interests.  And  as  it  required  the 
varied  experiences  of  many  ages  and  many  races  to  com- 
bine in  one  great  monument  the  parts  of  a  cathedral,  so  it 
requires  in  the  spectator  a  life  rich  in  these  ideas  to 
appreciate  and  admire  such  a  monument. 

The  traveller  must  have  travelled  much,  read  much, 
been  greatly  conversant  with  human  things  ;  swept  with 
his  own  experience  through  a  wide  circle  of  adventures  ; 
grasped  the  meanings  of  many  social  and  political  pheno- 
mena, and  undergone  great  revolutions  in  his  own  soul  — 


VIII.]  AECHITECTURE.  205 

or  he  will  walk  through  the  solemn  aisles  as  a  brute  beast 
grazes  heedlessly  among  tbe  grandest  and  most  beautiful 
scenes  in  nature.  If  he  be  a  narrow  bigot,  he  will  look  on 
all  the  symbolic  devices  around  him  as  a  vulgar  raree-show 
and  scoff  at  the  great  temple  as  a  house  of  idols.  If  he  be 
a  petty  shopman,  he  will  mereh^  price  in  his  own  sordid 
mind  the  money  value  of  the  golden  censer  and  the  marble 
tomb.  If  he  be  a  mere  political  economist  he  will  murmur 
at  the  vast  and  useless  expense  of  walls  and  arches, 
towers  and  pinnacles,  as  Judas  Iscariot  did  of  old  when 
the  woman  broke  her  alabaster  box  of  precious  ointment 
to  pour  its  contents  upon  Jesus'  feet.  If  he  be  a  mere 
statesman  and  a  democrat,  he  will  bluster  over  the  despotism 
of  priests,  the  selfish  pride  of  princes  and  the  beggarly 
self-indulgence  of  the  monastic  orders.  If  he  be  a  mere 
painter  or  sculptor  uninstructed  in  the  greatest  thoughts 
of  all  ages,  he  will  occupy  his  narrowed  taste  in  paltry 
criticisms  upon  this  or  the  other  work  of  art ;  carp  at  the 
architrave  mouldings,  complain  of  the  want  of  symmetry 
between  the  more  ancient  Norman  nave  and  the  more 
modern  pointed  Gothic  choir  or  draw  detracting  compari- 
sons between  the  facade  of  this  and  of  some  other  temple 
which  he  fancies  rather.  None  but  a  noble  mind  enlarged 
by  the  influx  of  all  the  past  can  comprehend  a  great  cathe- 
dral  and  the  genius  of  its  architects. 

A  savage  cannot  do  this.  He  is  stupified  by  the  incom- 
prehensible. The  cockney  Englishman  — the  raw  Ameri- 
can grown  suddenly  rich  by  some  infernal  speculation  — 
such  men  tramp  through  Europe  like  the  Goths  and 
Vandals  from  the  forests  of  ancient  Germany.  They  read 
no  story  in  its  monuments.  They  sail  up  the  Nile,  and 
although  its  granite  walls  are  covered  with  writings  these 
are  blank  hieroglyphics  to  such  eyes.  It  is  not  seeing 
much  that  gives  man  taste  or  knowledge  :  it  is  seeing  the 
relationships  of  things.  Better  see  a  few  fine  specimens 
and  analyze  and  comprehend  their  relationships  than  see 
all  things  with  an  unenlightened,  unreflecting  eye.  Napo- 
leon said  it  in  his  famous  sentence  :  '  Soldiers  !  forty 
centuries  look  down  on  you  from  the  pyramids.'  The 
Anglo-Saxon  calls  that  bombast.  No  ;  none  but  a  Napo- 
leon would  have  thought  of  such  an  apostrophe.  The  past 
reflects  itself  in  the  world's  monuments.     It  is  the  com- 


206  THE    ORTGIN    OP  [lKCT. 

monest  event  to  hear  a  stupid  Englishman  pride  himself  on 
his  nonchalance  for  ruins.  Why  ?  because  he  is  ignorant 
of  history;  he  sees  no  true  relation  between  a  crumbling 
ruin  and  his  own  well-upholstered  drawing-room  or 
smoking-room  or  billiard-room  at  home.  And  yet  had  not 
those  ruins  been  he  had  never  been  the  comfortable,  care- 
less, arrogant,  impertinent  Anglo-Saxon  gentleman  he  is. 

I  have  heard  this  story  told  of  a  New  England  clergyman ; 
perhaps  some  of  you  may  have  heard  it  told  of  some  one 
else  j  it  may  be  true  or  false ;  but  it  illustrates  what  I 
mean  to  say.  Prying  about  the  island  of  Malta  to  discover 
the  scene  of  St  PauPs  shipwreck  he  noticed  an  English 
officer  standing  in  a  doorway  and  addressed  him  with  the 
question  :  '  Pray,  sir,  can  you  inform  me  where  the  Apostle 
Paul  was  shipwrecked?^  '  Ha  ! '  was  the  fierce  and  quick 
response.  The  brother  meekly  repeated  the  question  : 
'Can  you  tell  me  where  Saint  Paul  was  shipwrecked  ?'  '  No, 
sir  !  we  want  none  of  your  damned  conundrums  here  ! ' 
The  soldier  had  probably  never  heard  of  the  event  so  full 
of  interest  to  the  clergyman  ;  or  if  he  had,  had  never 
thought  of  modern  Malta  being  the  Melita  of  Scripture 
history.  In  fact,  all  history  is  a  conundrum  to  such  men. 
Savages  have  no  history  at  all. 

Everything  in  mind,  in  taste,  in  generosity,  in  liberty 
of  one^s  own  soul,  depends  upon  the  view  we  get  of  great 
relationships.  This  is  why  the  highest  prospects  please  us 
least  in  travelling.  The  view  from  the  summit  of  Mount 
Washington  is  far  inferior  to  the  views  we  get  from  many 
of  the  lower  summits  of  the  White  Hills.  We  see  an  im- 
mense panorama,  but  reduced  to  one  dead  level  and  re- 
moved from  accurate  inspection.  We  must  get  some 
standing-point  whence  we  can  see  the  true  construction  of 
things.  Con-struction,  not  structure  only.  We  must  be 
able  to  tie  this  and  that  together,  glance  up  as  well  as 
down,  get  many  vistas  in  many  directions ;  see  how  the 
snow  feeds  the  glacier  and  the  glacier  breeds  the  river 
and  the  river  waters  the  vale  and  the  vale  debouches  on 
the  plain. 

The  finest  view  I  know  of  in  the  United  States  is  from 
the  summit  of  Penobscot  Knob  from  which  you  look  down 
upon  the  valley  of  Wyoming.  You  see  the  whole  geology 
of  the    region    at   a    glance  — the  Third  Anthracite  coal 


VI 1 1.]  ARCHITECTURE.  207 

basin  with  it?  rim  of  congloincrate  — the  long  canoe  of 
the  Upper  Devonian  mountain  inclosing  it  on  each  side 
and  at  the  ends — outside  of  which  spread  out  the  Middle 
Devonian  valleys.  Far  to  the  north  stands  the  great  wall  of 
the  Alleghanies,  mth  the  edge  of  the  First  Bituminous  coal 
basin  ou  its  summit.  As  far  to  the  south  the  Beaver- 
Meadow  mountains  spread  themselves  against  the  sky, 
bearing  up  the  basins  of  the  Second  Anthracite  Coal  Field. 
Through  a  bold  gorge  you  see  the  broad  sheet  of  the 
Susquehannah  river  come  winding  superbly  in  among  the 
corn-covered  plains  of  Kingston  in  one  direction  and 
sweeping  majestically  out  again  through  a  second  gap  to- 
wards the  west ;  then  for  the  third  time  striking  across 
the  canoe  between  grand  cliffs  it  passes  on  towards  the 
sea.  Close  by,  in  the  centre  of  the  fertile  fields  of  the  val- 
ley, glitters  the  beautiful  little  city  of  Wilksbarre.  Be- 
yond it,  on  the  Kingston  side,  a  small  grey  monument 
rises  to  mark  the  place  of  the  old  story  of  the  Indian  mas- 
sacre and  brings  to  mind  the  verses  of  the  poet  Campbell. 
On  the  same  northern  bank  of  the  river,  a  little  farther 
down,  you  may  perceive  where  men  have  opened  up  an 
Indian  graveyard  in  grading  for  a  grand  trunk  railway  to 
connect  the  mines  and  carry  off  their  produce  to  New  York. 
A  hundred  collieries  with  their  tall  chimneys  and  huge 
breakers  (those  curious  institutions  peculiar  to  Americafi 
collieries)  remind  you  of  the  genius  of  the  present  day. 
The  hum  of  many  trains  fills  the  air.  Just  at  your  feet 
burrows  a  deep  ravine,  with  a  fine  water-fall ;  and  on  a 
plot  of  grass  beside  it  is  a  pic-nic  party  of  smart  shop- 
keepers and  pretty  girls  who  claim  descent  from  the  Con- 
necticut settlers  four  generations  back.  Passenger  cars  are 
being  dragged  up  by  three  incline-planes  to  a  water-shed 
four  hundred  feet  below  you.  But,  see  !  A  thunder  gust 
is  coming  up,  bred  in  the  Buffalo  mountains  which  bound 
the  far-off  western  horizon.  It  spreads  its  great  black 
wings  to  the  right  and  left,  laying  its  thundering  bosom 
on  the  Wyoming  mountain  as  it  rushes  on  towards  you. 
You  stand  upon  a  natural  plate  of  rock  on  which  you  notice 
marks  not  made  by  man,  nor  by  the  common  elements — 
long,  parallel,  straight  lines — diluvial  scratches  they  are 
called.  You  may  observe  they  point  across  the  valley,  be- 
yond the  city   and  the  river   and  the  monument  precisely 


208  THE    ORIGIN    OF  [lECT. 

towards  the  gajo  in  the  Schickshinny  Mountain  opposite, 
through  which  the  river  breaks  at  CarapbelFs  Ledge.  A 
geologist  will  tell  you  that  these  scratches  were  made  by 
glacial  ice  coming  from  Canada.  Ihe  glacier^  entering  by 
that  gap,  must  once  have  crossed  and  filled  the  valley  and 
so  flowed  on,  southward,  over  the  mountain  top  on  which 
you  stand.  And  this,  of  course,  innumerable  years  before 
the  Red  man  had  discovered  how  to  harvest  maize  upon 
those  bloody  flats. 

But,  tell  me  !  were  the  Indian  to  return  and  seat  him- 
self upon  this  eminence,  would  he  see  all  this  ?  Or,  would 
a  Hebrew  dealer  in  old  clothes  ?  Imagine  a  savage  hap- 
pening here  when  all  beneath  his  eye  was  an  unbroken 
wilderness,  before  a  ship  had  crossed  the  Atlantic  or  a 
lump  of  coal  had  been  inflamed;  and  then  imagine  Sir 
Charles  Lyell,  or  Henry  D.  Rogers,  or  James  Hall,  or  Sir 
William  Logan  assembling  there  around  him  a  knot  of 
geologists,  politicians,  historians,  engineers,  artists  and 
poets ;  Longfellow  and  Emerson,  Bancroft  and  Hildreth, 
Trautwine  and  Haupt,  Bierstadt  and  Church,  Charles  Sum- 
ner and  Wendell  Philips,  Treasurer  McCulloch  and  Chief- 
Justice  Chase  — if  you  would  comprehend  how  wholly  the 
sentiment  of  the  beautiful  and  sublime  depends  for  its  ali- 
ment upon  the  knowledge  of  relationships  :  and  then  you 
can  also  comprehend  how  the  architecture  of  our  modem 
days,  how  the  grand  architecture  of  any  past  age  which 
had  one,  needed  times  and  revolutions  and  the  unfoldiug^^ 
of  all  human  passions  and  the  realization  of  all  human 
ideas   to  have  an  existence  even  in  possibility. 

Savages  have  no  art,  no  architecture,  because  they  have 
no  eyes  except  for  food  and  danger ;  because  they  take 
things  seriatim,  each  unrelated  to  the  rest.  Two  senti- 
ments inform  the  savage  mind  :  death  and  the  love  of 
parents.  These  pi'oduced  the  earliest  art.  Their  ancient 
gods  were  things  which  threatened  death,  and  persons 
who  bestowed  and  protected  life.  Ancestor  worship, 
therefore,  or  the  burial  and  after- worship  of  the  parent  by 
the  child,  and  of  the  chief  or  petty  king  by  his  tribe  or 
subjects,  constituted  the  first  of  all  religions  ;  and  tombs 
gave  origin  to  all  architecture. 

I  have  made  this  long  digression  for  the  purpose  of  clear- 
ing the  way  to  some  correct  theory  of  architecture ;  with 


VI  n.]  ARCIIITKCTURE.  209 

no  iutention,  however,  of  dogmatizing  against  other  more 
or  less  accepted  theories  which  do  not  seem  to  me  so  pro- 
bable, but  which,  nevercneiess,  ciaim  more  than  a  passing 
notice ;  although  I  think  that  I  can  show  that,  while  they 
draw  attention  to  some  important  points  in  the  history  of 
architectuix^,  and  to  a  certain  extent  explain  some  stages 
of  its  historical  development,  they  offer  no  sufficiently 
broad  explanation  for  the  great  mystery  of  its  original  in- 
ception in  the  human  mind. 

The  first  of  these  sub-theories,  as  they  may  be  called, 
supposes  that  the  natural  caves  of  the  earth  have  furnished 
the  first  and  principal  suggestions  of  architecture.  Those 
who  adopt  this  theory  point  to  the  fact  that  the  most 
famous  ancient  shrines  of  India,  such  as  those  at  Elephan- 
tine and  Ellora,  are  rock-temples,  artificial  excavations,  or 
oi'namented  caverns ;  and  that  many  of  the  ancient  monu- 
ments of  Egypt  are  tomb-temples  constructed  by  driving 
horizontal  caverns  into  the  rock-walls  of  the  Nile;  and 
that  most  of  the  ancient  temples  of  Greece  and  Rome 
were  perfectly  dark  cells,  square,  or  oblong,  surrounded 
by  columns ;  mere  imitations  in  the  open  air  of  the  dark 
rock-temples  of  India  and  Egypt.  The  body  of  a  Grecian 
temple  is  called  its  cella.  But  it  is  not  a  certain  fact  that 
the  rock-temples  of  India  are  its  most  ancient  edifices  ;  the 
topes  of  the  Jains  are  probably  some  of  them  much  older. 
We  have  lately  been  informed  of  the  existence  of  temples 
built  in  the  open  air  near  Memphis  much  older  than  all  the 
known  cave-temples  of  Upper  Egypt.  In  China  we  have 
no  evidence  of  any  such  antiquity  in  the  case  of  rock- 
temples  ;  and  in  Europe  and  Africa  all  the  most  ancient 
Druid  monuments  are  either  barrows  or  ranges  of  stand- 
ing stones  set  up  in  the  open  air.  If  then  we  can  discover 
.->ome  other  and  better  reasons  for  the  darkness  of  the  Greek 
and  Roman  temple  ceJla,  the  theory  of  which  we  speak 
loses  its  principal  support.  Here  Geology  comes  to  our 
aid  and  tells  us  that  the  earliest  places  of  human  sepulture 
were  natural  caves,  ceiled  up  to  eternal  darkness.  After- 
wards, when  men  became  partially  civilized,  they  ex- 
cavated artificial  caverns  for  tombs ;  but  left  them  un- 
adorned. At  the  next  stage  of  human  life  upon  the  planet 
these  cave-tombs  were  ornamented  first  by  painting,  and 
afterwards  by  sculpture  more  and  more  elaborate.     At  a 

14 


210  THE    ORIGI\    OF  [lECT. 

still  later  age  mankind  began  to  erect  tombs  in  the  open 
air,  especially  on  plains,  near  the  great  cities,  far  from  any 
rock-walls  or  mountain-sides,  and  still  they  built  them 
dark.  Thus  we  arrive  at  those  great  monuments,  the 
pyramids.  To  these,  at  length,  they  added  porches  and 
porticoes,  such  as  you  see  in  front  of  the  Second  Pyramid. 
And,  finally,  these  porticoes  suggested  the  construction  of 
temples  separate  fi-om  the  tombs ;  and  thus  the  compli- 
cated and  elaborate  system  of  more  modern  architecture 
took  its  rise. 

The  second  theory  which  I  will  mention  has  fewer  advo- 
cates. It  supposes  that  the  idea  of  grand  architecture 
arose  in  the  human  mind  from  beholding  those  great  ranges 
of  natural  basaltic  columns  which  are  common  in  volcanic 
countries.  The  advocates  of  this  theory  are  obliged  to 
rely  almost  entirely  upon  the  classic  styles  of  architecture 
for  its  support.  They  point  to  Doric  and  Ionic  faQades, 
and  the  splendid,  peristyle  temples  of  Greece  and  Italy. 
But  it  is  only  necessary  to  call  to  mind  that  the  earliest 
temple  of  which  we  know,  namely,  that  one  lately  opened  up 
by  Mariette,  at  a  distance  of  30  yards  south-east  from  the 
great  sphinx,  has  magnificent  ranges  of  columns  in  its  in- 
terior. That  it  was  built  by  the  king  I  have  named, 
Chephren,  the  third  king  of  the  4th  dynasty,  and  therefore 
almost  at  the  opening  of  ancient  Egjrptian  history,  is 
proved  by  a  multitude  of  facsimile  statuettes  found  in  a 
well  attached  to  it,  all  of  them  stamped  with  the  name  of 
that  monarch  in  a  cartouche ;  in  fact,  the  earliest  specimens 
of  sculptured  figures,  with  dates  upon  theui,  yet  dis- 
covered. It  is  built  in  the  form  of  the  letter  T,  and  its 
immense  roof  is  sustained  by  two  rows  of  huge,  square  pil- 
lars of  rose  granite  along  the  nave,  supporting  an  archi- 
trave of  alabaster;  while  a  third  row  of  similar  pillars 
runs  along  the  middle  of  the  transept.  Its  immense  age 
and  the  unsophisticated  manners  of  that  earliest  day  are 
signalized  by  the  severity,  the  methodistical  simplicity  of 
the  whole  interior.  Not  an  ornament,  not  a  letter  is  to  be 
seen ;  and  it  confirms  an  incidental  assertion  of  Strabo, 
that  in  Egypt  there  used  to  be  temples  of  a  barbarous 
style,  supported  by  rows  of  columns,  and  wholly  unorna- 
mented.  I  will  explain,  in  a  future  lecture,  his  epithet 
*  barbarous.' 


VIII. 


ARCHITECTURE.  211 


The  rock-temples  of  India  also,  although  of  far  inferior 
antiquity,  are  supported  within  by  rows  of  columns  elabor- 
ately sculptured.  "Why  should  we  suppose  the  early  archi- 
tects were  necessitated  to  copy  the  rare  instances  of  fine 
basaltic  escarpments,  when  the  necessity  for  pillars  to  sup- 
port a  roof  arises  immediately  from  the  enlargement  of 
the  cave.  The  transition  from  columns  within  to  columns 
without  the  temple  is  the  easiest  imaginable.  But  we  will 
find  other  reasons  for  rejecting  this  theory  when  we  come 
to  consider  the  idea  of  the  column  itself,  which  stood  to 
the  ancient  mind  for  a  symbol,  quite  apart  from  the  temple. 
The  column  was  a  divine  statue, — a  deity.  It  was  so  in 
all  the  early  ages,  to  all  the  ancient  peoples ;  and  it  was 
magnificently  so  employed,  with  finer  aud  finer  effects,  as 
mythologies  were  born  and  married  to  each  other.  The 
standing  stones  of  the  Druids ;  the  Lot's  Wives  and 
Weeping  Niobes  of  the  poets ;  the  straight  processions  of 
deity-headed  pillars  at  Carnac  ;  the  range  of  eight  Doric 
columns  before  the  Parthenon ;  and  the  circles  of  twin- 
columns  in  chuiThes  of  a  later  age,  were  all  generated 
from  the  myth  of  men  and  women  turned  to  stone,  termini 
and  Caryatides,  gods  and  priests,  standing  gigantic  and 
solemn,  in  orderly  silence,  within  or  around  the  temple  of 
the  deity.  The  proofs  of  this  assertion  are  too  voluminous 
to  lay  before  you  at  the  end  of  a  lecture  ;  but  no  true 
generalization  upon  ancient  art  would  be  half  complete 
without  its  distinct  recognition. 

There  is  a  third  theory  which  I  must  allude  to  briefly, 
because  it  has  obtained  many  supporters  in  England, 
especially  since  the  discovery  of  the  Lydian  and  Carian 
monuments  in  the  early  part  of  this  century.  It  supposes 
that  all  ancient  architecture  originated  in  an  enlargement 
to  public  purposes  of  the  private  cottage.  The  theory 
depends  almost  entirely  on  Grecian  art  for  its  illustrations, 
and  therefore  is  of  very  limited  scope,  neglecting  most  of 
the  architectural  records  of  Asia  and  Africa  and  Western 
Europe.  It  relies  upon  the  form  of  the  Grecian  pediment, 
and  the  ornamentation  of  its  architrave.  The  Greek 
builder  was  under  the  necessity  of  roofing  his  temples 
against  a  northern  sky.  Snow  fell  in  Greece,  and  the 
pitched  roof  and  over-hanging  eaves  were  necessaries. 
These  were  supported  by  horizontal  beams,  like  a  fisher's 


212  THE   ORIGIN    OF  [lECT. 

hut ;  the  ends  of  the  beams  stuck  out,  and  were  split  by 
the  weather ;  the  rain-drops  stood  in  beads  below  their 
edges  ;  hence  the  Grecian  triglyph  ornaments ;  they  were 
mere  representations  of  the  beam-ends  and  rain-drops  in 
stone.  Just  so  you  will  see  long  dental  shadows  cast  from 
the  alternate  projecting  tiles  upcm  the  side  walls  of  the 
houses  in  Southern  France,  and  then  these  shadows  imi- 
tated in  stone  ai'ounc^the  eaves  of  the  Cathedral  Church  of 
'l^oulouse.  But  suppose  all  this  true,  it  is  only  the  history 
of  one  part  of  the  ornamentation  of  one  style  of  architec- 
ture, and  that  of  a  very  recent  age.  The  great  Doric 
temples  at  Pfestum  are  supposed  to  have  had  no  roofs,  and 
yet  they  had  end  pediments.  Besides,  the  pediment  itself 
is  a  religious  symbol,  apart  from  all  necessity  for  a  roof. 
It  represented  the  pyramid,  as  the  column  represented  the 
obelisk.  In  the  pediment  the  Greeks  placed  the  statues 
of  their  gods.  It  was  their  Olympus.  But  the  Greek  gods 
were  men  of  a  still  older  time,  and  the  Greek  pediment 
had  come  to  be  the  Olympus  of  their  gods,  only  because 
the  previous  pyramids  had  been  the  tombs  of  kings.  And 
so  with  the  architrave  under  it.  It  was  not  the  string- 
piece  of  a  house,  laid  on  the  top  of  a  wall  to  sustain  the 
roof;  it  was  a  separate  and  ancient  symbol  by  itself;  it 
replaced  in  the  modern  Greek  art  the  far  more  ancient 
flaring  cornice  and  cord-moulding  of  the  Egyptian  temples. 
In  fact,  all  these  theories,  based  upon  the  local  styles  of 
Greece,  have  lost  their  credit  with  archgeologists  since  the 
discovery  of  the  so-called  '  proto-doi'ic  ^  style  of  Egypt. 
The  Greeks  got  all  the  essential  ideas  of  their  Doric  archi- 
tecture from  the  ancient  Egyptians  ;  and  all  the  variations 
of  it  which  are  called  Ionic  from  the  ancient  Babylonians 
and  Assj^rians.  This  is  now  so  well  made  out  that  it  is  a 
generally  accepted  truth. 

The  last  and  fourth  theory  of  the  rise  of  architecture 
which  I  need  mention  is  still  more  local  in  its  application 
than  the  preceding,  and  therefore  as  a  general  theory  still 
less  acceptable.  It  supposes  that  the  first  idea  of  grand 
aichitecture  came  from  the  woods;  from  overhanging  trees 
forming  long,  lofty  vistas  to  the  eye,  closed  at  the  farther 
end  with  interlacing  boughs  and  leafy  tracery.  Behold  a 
Gothic  church  !  See  how  its  piers  arise  on  either  hand 
like  mighty  trees  !       See  how  the  ribs   meet  over-head  ! 


VIII.]  AKCHITECTUKE.  213 

See  the  west  window  with  its  hundred  mullions  !  What 
can  be  more  evident  than  that  the  architect  had  trod  the 
forest  aisles,  and  built  them  o'er  again  in  stone!  It  is  a 
pity  to  retire  from  such  a  phantasy.  Nor  need  we.  The 
last  of  all  architecture  must  not  only  include  all  that  went 
before  it  but  involve  new  elements  of  beauty.  The  free- 
masons of  Germany  and  France  were  princelike  poets,  and 
they  introduced  into  the  grim  conventional  grandeurs  of 
the  Egyptian  art  and  into  the  cold  perfect  chastity  of 
Grecian  art  sweet  humours  and  warm  blood  fresh  from 
the  heart  of  nature.  They  were  Christians  ;  while  their 
Grecian  ancestors  were  pagans  ;  and  the  old  Egyptian  fore- 
runners of  all  were  dwellers  in  the  tombs.  They  broke  up 
the  massive  piers  into  reedy  clustered  columns  and  shot 
their  branching  tops  into  mid-air  to  meet  in  bunches  of 
foliage.  They  covered  up  the  faces  of  the  damned  old 
gods  of  the  box-shaped  capitals  with  leaves  and  flowers 
80  that  the  tender  bosoms  of  their  children  might  not  heave 
with  terror  as  they  passed  them  by  in  advancing  towards 
the  altar  where  the  Lamb  of  God  was  taking  away  the  sias 
of  the  whole  world.  They  let  into  the  dark  old  tomb-like 
temple  all  the  heaven  of  the  sky,  all  the  warmth  of  the  sun 
with  healing  in  its  beams;  and  painted  the  clerestory  with 
a  universal  rainbow  ;  promising  by  all  the  angels,  saints 
and  martyrs  in  those  windows  that  wrath  should  be  for- 
gotten. Then  they  went  forth  and  built  tall  towers;  and 
from  their  tops  shot  spires  far  into  heaven,  covered  like- 
wise with  angels  and  with  roses ;  and  hung  therein  whole 
chimes  of  bells  to  drive  away  all  evil  and  shower  down 
in  music  the  blessings  of  the  upper  and  eternal  spheres. 

Thank  God  for  these  cathedrals  !  And  for  their  loving- 
hearted,  large-souled,  Caucasian  Christian  architects.  Thev 
builded  on  the  ruins  of  foregoing  styles,  out  of  the  genius 
of  foiegoing  days;  but  in  the  new  dispensation  of  a  su- 
perior beauty  and  a  diviner  truth. 


LECTURE  IX. 

THE    GROWTH    OF   THE    ALPHABET. 

Men  must  liave  lived  a  long  time  upon  the  earth  before 
they  invented  an  alphabet.  It  is  a  wonderful  product  of 
the  senses,  the  fancy  and  the  understanding  co-operating. 
Its  use  by  any  people  proves  that  that  people  has  been 
civilized.  If  this  be  true  now,  it  must  have  been  true  at 
the  beginning.  Thinking  men  set  so  high  a  value  on 
letters  that  they  have  been  disposed  to  deny  man's  genius 
the  ability  to  invent  them,  and  have  therefore  affirmed  that 
God  gave  Adam  letters  in  Paradise.  But  the  genius  of 
man,  as  it  grew  and  developed  its  resources,  was  capable 
of  all  things  necessary.  If  the  creative  plan,  revealed  in 
other  parts  of  the  creation,  was  to  find  its  consummation 
in  the  development  of  human  life  through  all  its  stages, 
upward  to  the  highest  civilization,  then  the  germs  of  liter- 
ature were  planted  early,  and  appeared  in  due  time.  The 
only  questions  modern  science  feels  called  upon  to  ask  are: 
how  ?  in  what  forms  first  ?  and  afterwards  ? 

I  said,  in  my  last  lecture  that  the  first  efibrts  of  man- 
kind to  express  the  assthetic  sentiments  were  made  in  the 
direction  of  sculpture  and  architecture,  under  the  guidance 
of  certain  obscure  ideas  which  I  did  not  attempt  then  to  ex- 
plain. This  I  attempt  to-night,  because  these  same  obscui-e 
ideas  became  openly  and  plainly  embodied  afterwards  in 
literature.  They  decided  in  fact  the  shapes  of  the  first 
letters,  and  the  modes  adopted  by  the  earliest  sculptors  and 
architects  for  giving  a  plainer  meaning  to  their  images  and 
temples.  What  I  mean  to  assert  is  that  the  art  of  letters 
grew  out  of  the  arts  of  sculpture  and  architecture,  and  that 
we  have  no  trustworthy  clue  through  the  mysteries  of  the 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  ALPHABET.  215 

origins  and  growths  of  alpliaLets  until  we  liavc  learned  to 
comprehend  the  mysteries  of  primeval  architecture. 

The  first  architects  were  beyond  all  doubt  those  religious 
teachers  who  civilized  and  intellectualized  the  races  to 
which  they  belonged.  Philology  teaches  us  this  much,  if 
nothing  more.  The  Greek  word  for  a  poet,  7rotr/r/;s,  in- 
volves the  Greek  verb  itoi€lv,  to  make  or  build.  But  the 
word  poet  is  the  same  as  the  word  bard,  and  the  Hebrew 
word  for  cutting,  carving,  making,  creating,  was  Bara. 
So  the  old  northern  name  for  a  poet,  s-kald,  is  repre- 
sented by  the  ancient  Egyptian  words  8-kar  to  cut,*  and 
s-xav  to  make.  The  old  Egyptian  word  hak  to  carve,  be- 
came in  time  the  Latin /ac-{o,  and  the  German  and  English 
wach-en.  The  high  priest  of  Rome  was  called  its  ponHfex 
maxhmis,  or  chief  builder  of  arches  or  bridges. f 

But  there  are  other  strange  combinations  of  these  func- 
tions of  the  priest  and  the  temple-builder.  The  oldest 
Druid  temples  we  know  of  are  circles  of  stones.  The 
Greeks  called  circles  kvkKol,  dropping  the  r.  The  word 
seems  to  have  been  originally  kir-kir,  or  KeA-xeA. ;  for  in  all 
languages  the  letters  r  and  /  are  confounded  and  exchanged 
one  for  the  other.  Now  the  oldest  of  all  architectural 
edifices  throughout  the  Mediterranean  countries,  except 
Egypt,  are  old  walls  and  ruined  buildings  of  immense 
stones,  called  Cyclopean.  I  cannot  go  into  the  discussion 
of  the  nature  of  the  Cyclops,  but  I  think  it  can  be  proved 
that  they  were  the  representatives  in  fable  of  the  wild 
Druid  priests  of  the  circles  of  standing  stones,  like  Stone- 
henge,  from  which  we  get  our  word  for  church,  or  kirk.  J 
In  archaic  Grecian  times  all  the  poets  before  Homer  and 
Hesiod  were  grouped  into  one  class,  representing  a  hoar 
antiquity.  They  were  known  as  the  kvkXlk  (cyclic)  poets, 
the  poets  or  bards  of  the  circle.  The  earliest  of  them  all 
was  called  Arctinus,  or  the  Arkite.  Their  themes  were 
exclusively  Arkite  ;  their  poetry  is  described  by  the  Greeks 

*  Com])are  English  'to  scar;'  Welsh  mountain-sides,  scars. 

t  v^  /is.  to  sing,  a  bard.  Man  squatting,  wrapped  up.  Sarcophagus 
5ri  of  anx-iiepi.  British  Museum.  Bunsen's  Ideograph,  104. 
Compare  Hs-iri,  Osiris,  and  his  picture,  Ideograph,  130.  The  judge  is 
still  more  strongly  marked  than  the  poet.  He  sits  in  a  bath  of  water,  ^jg^ 
He  is  called  stm,  meaning  judge,  one  who  hears  truth.  D.  34.  Ideo-^^V 
graph,  97.     In  Ideograph  27,  the  panther  skin  replaces  the  water,     ^ay 

t  See  the  whole  discussion  from  Bozzei  in  Lempriere.  (B.  52.  32.) 


216  THE    GROWTFI    OP  [lECT. 

of  a  later  day  as  rude,  like  tliat  of  the  Welsh  bards ;  their 
style  was  Egyptian-like  in  its  stiffness  and  severe  sim- 
plicity. Their  sphere  of  thought  was  bounded  by  the 
magic  circle  of  primeval  mythology ;  their  line  vanishes 
into  the  dim  background  of  Graeco-Asiatic  literature  ;  one 
of  them,  called  the  Ethiopian,  sang  of  Memnon.  They 
wore  entirely  different  from  the  poets  who  sang  the  wars 
of  Greece  :  the  historians,  comedists  and  love-songwriters 
of  a  later  age.  To  the  Greeks  of  Plato's  day  their  poems 
corresponded  to  the  Psalms  of  David  in  our  sacred  Scrip- 
tures, or  to  the  hymns  of  the  Eig-Veda  in  the  Hindu  Scrip- 
tures. When  the  Homeric  scholiasts  quoted  them  they 
simply  said  ev  kvkK(^  Aeyet,  '  as  it  is  written  in  the  circle,' 
just  as  the  apostles  quoted  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
saying,  '  as  it  is  written  in  the  prophets.' 

Proclus  thus  describes  the  ancient  Epic  cycle.  I  give  a 
free  translation  of  his  words  :  '  The  Epic  cycle  is  deduced 
from  a  mixture  of  heaven  and  earth,  from  which  came  three 
hundred-handed  sons,  and  three  Cyclopses.  It  briefly  dis- 
cusses gods  and  other  fabulous  things,  and  contains  some 
history.  It  is  ended  by  the  labour  of  many  poets  at  the 
murder  of  Ulysses  by  his  unconscious  son  Telegon.  Its 
hymns  are  still  studied,  not  for  the  sake  of  virtue,  but  for 
the  good  order  of  its  facts.  And  it  preserves  the  names 
and  countries  of  its  bards.' 

Let  me  give  you  one  of  those  ancient  sagas  — the  story 
of  Pelops,  '  In  Sipylus  in  Phrygia  there  once  reigned  a 
wicked  king  Tantalus,  son  of  Jupiter ;  he  had  two  children, 
Pelops  and  Niobe.  At  first  the  gods  were  his  friends  and 
feasted  at  his  house ;  but  he  committed  two  great  sins,  for 
which  he  was  sent  to  hell,  where  he  remains  standing  up 
to  his  lips  in  water  unable  to  obtain  a  drop  to  quench  his 
raging  thirst,  while  a  great  rock  suspended  over  his  head 
threatens  every  moment  to  fall  and  crush  him.  His  prime 
offence  was  that  of  divulging  to  tnortals  the  secrets  of  the 
gods  which  he  heard  at  his  own  table.  His  second  offence 
was  the  diabolical  trick  which  he  played  upon  his  Olympian 
guests  in  cooking  his  own  boy  Pelops  and  serving  him  up 
as  a  ragout  to  see  if  their  omniscience  would  discover 
Avhat  it  was  they  ate.  Mercury  restored  the  boy  to  life, 
but  could  not  recover  his  shoulder,  which  had  been  alr(>ady 
eaten.     So  he  made  the  boy  a  new  shoulder  of  ivory.     His 


IX.]  THE    ALPHABET.  217 

fresh  beauty  now  ravislied  the  heart  of  Neptune,  who 
carried  him  in  his  own  golden  chariot  to  the  top  of 
Olympus,  until  the  rest  of  the  enraged  deities  after  a  furi- 
ous knock-down  and  drag-out  fight  in  the  royal  dining- 
hall  had  settled  his  father^s  hash;  then  he  was  carried 
back  to  rule  in  his  father's  stead.  His  descendants  for 
three  generations  reigned  in  Argos ;  that  means  the  Pelo- 
ponnesus (Pelops'  ship,  or  Pelops'  isle).  And  his  bones 
were  afterwards  taken  to  Troy  and  became  the  Palladium 
of  that  unhappy  town.  His  sister  Niobe  had  all  her 
childien  killed  by  Diana,  and  she  herself  was  turned  into 
stone   and  still  sits  weeping  on  a  mountain  in  Phrygia.' 

There  is  no  disputing  the  theory  that  in  all  the  items  of 
this  story  (and  it  is  only  an  example  of  the  whole  class  of 
Cyclopean  poems)  there  rules  a  reference  to  some  original 
history  like  that  which  the  Hebrew  poets  have  embodied  in 
the  story  of  Xoah  and  Mount  Ararat.  Tan-tal-us  repre- 
sents the  Tor,  or  mountain,  submerged  to  its  very  lips. 
The  stone  above  his  head  is  the  ark  about  to  touch  the 
mountain-top.  Tantalus  is  in  Tartarus ;  is  in  fact  the  same 
as  Tartarus,  the  place  of  Torture,  the  cavern  in  the 
mountain,  the  home  of  mysteries  and  horrors  and  woes, 
the  hoUe,  hole,  or  hell  of  the  Germanic  nations.  Niobe,  the 
daughter  of  the  mountain,  is  again  the  ark,  turned  to  stone; 
her  name,  Niob,  is  the  Egyptian  word  0e/3  the  ark  of 
Osiris,  and  the  Hebrew  word  Theba,  Noah's  ark.  The 
Greek  Taueus,  a  mountain,  is  the  Arabic  tel  or  tol,  a 
mountain.  But  the  Shemitic  nations  wrote  all  their  words 
backward  from  right  to  left,  and  so  this  word  tol  becomes 
lot,  whose  wife  (her  name  is  no  where  given)  was  also 
turned  like  Niobe  to  stone.  Pelops,  Niobe's  brother,  was 
the  Noah  of  the  story.  First,  his  fother  offered  him  up  to 
the  gods,  as  the  Brahma  of  the  Hebrews  offered  up  his 
son  Ikswaca  (Isaac).  Neptune,  or  the  rising  deluge,  canned 
him  up  in  the  golden  car  (the  ark)  to  the  top  of  Olympus, 
until  his  father  was  destroyed,  that  is,  until  the  Ararat  was 
sunk  to  his  very  lips  in  the  hell  of  waters.  Then  he  was 
restored.  His  descendants  reigned  in  Argos ;  they  were 
priests  of  Arkism.  He  himself  became  the  divinity  of  the 
Tor,  the  city  of  Troy.  And  so  on  ad  infinitum  et  ad  nau- 
seam. 

I  did  not  intend  to  introduce  the  subject  of  mythology 


218  THE    GROWTH    OP  [lECT. 

SO  early  in  this  course  of  lectures.  It  will  claim  our 
attention  fully  hereafter.  But  I  am  forced  to  it,  in 
order  to  state  clearly  the  true  theoiy  of  architecture  and 
the  true  origin  of  the  alphabet.  Architecture  began  with 
imitations  of  Tantalus  and  Niobe  and  Pelops  in  stone. 
Architecture  began  in  attempts  to  build  pyramids  like 
Ararat,  and  to  place  upon  their  summits  shrines  of  worship 
and  houses  of  God  symbolical  of  the  ark.  For  this  purpose 
islnnds  were  especially  selected  because  they  were  sur- 
rounded by  the  sea.  Sometimes  even  they  were  said  to  float, 
as  in  the  case  of  Delos  (tel).  The  marshes  of  inundated 
deltas,  the  level  sealike  expansions  of  the  desert  sands,  were 
equal  favourites  for  building  places.  Where  water  could  not 
otherwise  be  obtained  tanks  were  dug,  and  in  their  centres 
pyramids  and  temples  were  erected.  Especial  use  was 
made  of  every  natural  peak  of  rock  around  which  tlae 
fluvial  mud  of  some  great  river,  like  the  Ganges,  Euphrates, 
Nile,  or  Rhone,  had  settled;  and  on  these  the  traveller  is 
sui-e  to  see  the  ruined  temples  and  monasteries  of  the  old 
religions  converted  now  into  Christian  churches,  wherever 
Christianity  has  taken  possession  of  the  ground.* 

Old  books  on  architecture  are  full  of  definitions  of  this 
or  that  fityle.  Until  recently  none  but  the  so-called  classic 
styles  were  recognized  as  genuine  architecture.  All  else 
was  merely  barbarous.  The  classic  styles  were  those  of 
Greece  and  Rome  — Doric,  and  Ionic,  Corinthian,  Tuscan, 
and  Composite.  But  when  Bruce  and  Belzoni  discovered 
Doric  columns  in  Upper  Egypt,  and  Layard  and  Lassen 
Ionic  capitals  on  the  banks  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates, 
writers  on  architecture  began  to  take  larger  views  of  the 
subject.  When  Daniels  published  his  magnificent  plates 
of  the  Pagodas  of  India,  and  Kingsborough  and  Stephens 
made  known  totheworld  the  Egyptian-like  edifices  of  central 
America ;  when  other  travellers  had  brought  to  notice  the 
monuments  of  Thibet  and  China,  the  immense  statues  and 
Cyclopean  walls  of  the  Pacific  islands,  and  the  Druid 
Tolmens  of  the  Sahara  desert, — then  it  became  possible 
for  Fergusson  to  write  on  architectural  science  a  text-book 

*  The  pyramid  of  Cheops  is  said  to  be  built  on  such  a  rock.  Another, 
a  ledge  of  rock  in  situ,  is  seen  in  the  floor  of  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  St 
Michael's  Mounts.  See  the  St  George's  of  the  Delta  of  the  E,hone,  &c., 
and  those  back  of  Aries. 


a.] 


THE    ALPHABET. 


219 


as  far  in  advance  of  old  Vitruvius,  as  Lyell's  Principles 
and  Dana's  Geology  are  in  advance  of  the  local  classifica- 
tions of  Werner,  or  of  Eaton's  Manual. 

Still  the  great  primal  principles  of  architecture,  in  my 
opinion,  have  not  been  clearly  stated  by  any  writer.  We 
are  bewildered  by  an  ever-increasing  multitude  of  pictures. 
We  must  give  up  for  a  moment  the  study  of  these  details 
and  take  a  more  distant  and  summary  view  of  the  great 
edifices  of  the  world,  if  we  are  to  detect  the  aboriginal 
principles  of  architecture. 

Let  us  select  a  Chinese  or  Thibetan  temple,  a  Hindoo 
pagoda,  an  Egyptian  propylon,  and  a  Norwegian  church, 
and  set  them  side  by  side  before  us.  Now  the  question 
arises,  are  there  any  prime  or  essential  features  common 
to  them  all  ?  If  there  be,  these  common  traits  must  give 
us  some  clue  to  the  universal  meaning  of  architecture,  and 
therefore  to  its  aboriginal  ideas. 

I  will  not  delay  you  in  the  answer  to  this  question. 
Look  at  these  pictures  and  you  have  the  evidence  before  you. 


Fig.  1.  Thibetan,  Hindu,  Egyptian,  and  Norwegian 
temples. 


Fig.  2.  An  Egyptian 
hieroglyphic. 


These  buildings — in  their  dates  and  situations  so  remote 
from  one  another,  in  their  details  of  ornamentation  so 
diSerent  from  each  other — show,  nevertheless,  one  commou 
plan.  Each  of  them  consists,  as  you  see,  of  two  chief  mem- 
bers— a  lower  and  an  upper.  The  lower  member  is  a 
square  pyramid  ;  the  upper  member  an  over-hanging  box. 
All  the  original  or  religious  architectures  of  the  world  have 
been  framed  upon  this  plan.  And  I  leave  it  for  yourselves  to 
judge  if  it  be  not  the  plan  you  would  expect  the  ancieut 
priesthoods  to  adopt  if  we  be  permitted  to  suppose  that 
the  first  great  fact  of  human  history  was  some  such  grand 
catastrophe  as  that  of  Noah's  flood.  The  lower  member  of 
the  plan  would  represent  the  Ai-arat ;  the  upper  member 
would  represent  the  ark  that  rested  on  its  summit. 

But  subdivision  is  the  universal  primary  mode  of  growth, 
as  all  oologists  well  know.     Every  germinal  cell  first  elou- 


220  THE    GROWTH    OP  [lECT. 

gates  and  then  parts  in  the  middle  to  form  two,  which  in 
turn  elongate,  separate,  and  form  four.  These  four  form 
eight,  and  so  on  through  eternity.  Thought,  too,  obeys 
this  law  of  matter.  The  first  mythology  must  be,  in  course 
of  time,  extended  and  bisected,  like  all  other  living  things. 
The  creation  is  an  apothecary\s  counter ;  heresy  is  its 
golden  spatula. 

We  must  investigate  the  rise  of  some  great  schism  in 
mythology  which  produced  also  a  great  first  schism  in 
architectural  ideas,  resulting  in  a  two-fold  historic  develop- 
ment of  the  original  plan. 

While  the  single  pyramidal  pile,  with  the  single  shrine 
upon  its  apex,  continued  to  be  in  China  in  Thibet  and  in 
India  the  type  of  the  religious  edifice,  there  arose  in 
Egypt,  and  spread  throughout  the  European  world,  a  du- 
plicated type  of  temple — two  mountains  side  by  side,  two 
arks  upon  their  tops.  The  earliest  Egyptian  monuments 
are  single ;  those  of  the  middle  and  later  empires  are 
double.  Two  vast  propylasa  tower  side  by  side  to  form 
the  portal  of  that  immense  group  of  courts  and  shrines 
which  we  call  the  temple  of  Karnak  at  Thebes. 

In  modern  times  the  Christian  cathedrals  were  built 
upon  this  plan,  but  with  a  difierence.  Instead  of  the 
twin  towers  being  themselves  capped  with  two  arks,  a 
single  ark  or  nave  was  placed  between  them.  Look  at  the 
huge  square  Roman  towers  at  the  west  end  of  the  Abbey 
of  Jumieges  near  Rouen ;  at  the  great  west-end  Norman 
towers  of  William  the  Conqueror's  abbey-church  for  men 
in  Caen ;  at  the  Gothic  towers  of  Notre  Dame  in  Paris ;  at 
Wrongs  west  towers  of  Westminster;  at  all  the  most 
celebrated  cathedrals  of  western  Europe,  some  of  which 
have  been  completed  during  our  own  lives.  It  is  the  plan 
of  Christendom. 

What  explanation  now  has  history,  or  natural  history,  to 
ofi"er  of  this  singular  departure  from  the  original  type  of 
temple  ?  Does  it  mark  the  origin  and  growth  of  that  nice 
festhetic  function  of  the  mind  which  we  call  symmetry  ? 
Is  it  related  to  the  rise  of  those  obscure  but  natural  specu- 
lations of  the  old  mythologists,  w^hich  resulted  in  the  spread 
of  Phallic  worship,  and  which  duplicated  all  the  gods  of 
pjgypt  and  Greece,  and  laid  the  foundation  for  the  early 
speculations  of  philosophers  respecting  the  male  and  female 


«.] 


THE    ALPHABET. 


22i 


elements  of  force  in  nature  ?  or  does  it  stand  in  evidence 
of  the  first  attempts  of  the  human  intellect  to  oppose 
dualism  to  unity,  and  satisfy  the  human  soul  with  a  philo- 
sophy that  shall  explain  the  origin  of  evil  without  detract- 
ing from  the  goodness  of  omnipotence  ?  At  all  events,  1 
think  I  can  convince  you  it  was  no  mere  accident. 

Perhaps,  if  we  could  discover  why  the  Hebrew  story  of 
the  deluge,  written  in  southern  Syria,  went  to  the  borders 
of  the  Caspian  Sea,  to  Armenia,  to  select  a  mountain  for 
its  scenery  we  might  solve  the  riddle.  The  Armenian 
Ararat   (see  Fig.  3)  is   an  extinct  volcano,  rising  directly 


Fig.  3.  Mount  Ararat  in  Armenia. 

from  the  surface  of  an  immense  plain  to  the  distinguished 
height  of  13,000  feet.  'Jlie  plain  is  itself  3000  feet  above 
the  sea  ;  all  the  upper  part  of  the  mountain  is  therefore 
within  the  limits  of  perpetual  snow.  But  it  is  not  a  singli 
cone  ;  it  is  grandly  duplicated;  and  in  the  notch  betwe^.. 
the  cones  tradition  says  the  ribs  of  the  old  ship  still  sleep; 
but  woe  to  the  mortal  who  attempts  to  reach  its  dreadful 
resting-place  ! 

The  cones  are  of  unequal  height,  one  being  13,300,  the 
other  only  9500  feet  above  the  bed  of  the  Araxes  flowing 
through  the  plain.  '  Nothing  can  be  more  beautiful  than 
its  shape,'  writes  Morier,  *  or  more  awful  than  its  height. 
All  the  suri'ounding  mountains  sink  into  insignificance 
when  compared  to  it.  It  is  perfect  in  all  its  parts;  no 
hard  rugged  feature ;  no  unnatural  prommences ;  every- 
thing is  in  harmony,  and  all  combine  to  render  it  one  «,f 
the  sublimest  objects  in  nature.'     And  we  may  well  add. 


222  THE    GROWTH    OF  [LECT. 

one  of  the  most  terrib.e.  It  is  a  slecpiug  lion.  In  the 
earthquake  of  1840,  which  lasted  from  June  until  Septem- 
ber, masses  of  rock  and  ice  were  thrown  from  the  upper 
cones  6000  feet  at  a  single  bound,  covering  portions  of  the 
plains  below  with  desolation.* 

It  seems  to  have  been  this  splendid  object  that  cap- 
tivated the  fancy  of  the  human  race  as  it  moved  westward 
along  the  historic  belt  of  emigration.  Mount  Masius, 
the  Damavend,  Mount  Meru,  the  Sufued  Koh,t  Adam's 
peak  in  Ceylon,:}:  and  all  those  other  typical  diluvial  sum- 
rai^o  of  central  and  eastern  Asia  were  but  single  peaks, 
and  satisfied  the  transcendental  idea  of  a  mountain.  This 
double  cone  of  Ararat  (or  the  two  Ararats,  as  they  are 
called,)  produced  a  ripple  in  the  stream  of  tradition,  divided 
it,  and  gave  birth  to  the  second  grand  order  of  dupHcated 
architecture.  § 

There  must  have  been  among  the  early  masons  the  same 
diversity  of  natural  tempei'ament  as  now  exists  among  their 
representatives.  One  class  would  be  idealists  and  cla,^m 
that  the  true  prototype  and  divine  original  was  the  moun- 
tain idea  in  its  absolute  unity.  Another  party,  more 
sensuous  and  literal,  and  perhaps  more  artistic,  would  de- 
vote themselves  to  the  expansion  of  that  first  idea,  and 
to  the  imitation  of  the  actual  Ararat,  producing  all  their 
forms  in  double  series.  Thus  even  the  Druid  barrow  came 
to  be  elongated  and  furnished  with  a  peak  at  either  end ; 
for  it  is  scarcely  disputed  now  that  the  long  barrows  are  of 
a  later  age  than  the  round  mounds.  Thus  also,  in  Italy 
the  pediment  was  split  into  two,  and  the  urn  was  placed 

*  See  Major  Voskoboinikof's  report  iu  the  Athenceum  for  1841,  p.  157 ; 
quoted  in  Kitto,  mb  voc. 

t  Or  White  Mouutain,  on  the  road  to  Peshawur  and  Cabul.  Opposite 
it  is  Noorgill,  or  Koouer,  a  toweriuj^  hill.  Here  the  Affghans  set  the 
Ark.     (Burue's  Travels  ill  Bokhara,  i.  p.  117.) 

t  Tlie  Samaritan  Pentateuch  gives  in  Gen.  viii.  4,  Sarandib,  which  is 
the  Arabic  name  of  Ceylon. 

§  'j-iis  'The  mountains  of  Ararat.''  It  is  nowhere  a  Bible  name  for  a 
mountain.  Gen.  viii.  4.  See  only  elsewhere  2  Kings  xix.  37  ;  Is.  xxxvil, 
38;  and  Jer.  ii.  27.  ll  must  have  been  east  of  Mesopotamia;  see  Gen. 
xi.  2,  and  Kitto's  fine  argument.  In  the  Sibylline  verses  tiie  mountains  of 
Ararat  are  in  Pi-ygia;  Airafita  in  Phrygia  was  called  by  Greeks  Ki^iioro^, 
the  Ark,  becaus''  enclosed  by  three  rivers  in  the  shape  of  an  ;irk. 


IX.]  THE    ALPHABET.  223 

between  its  peaks,  instead  of  on  the  summit  of  the  pedi- 
ment.    (See  Fig.  4.) 


Fig.  4.  The  Pediment,  split  to  receive  the  Urn  ;  and  the  Hour-glass. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  speak  of '  styles/  and  to  study 
architecture  in  detail. 

Every  race,  almost  every  nation,  developed  the  Arkite 
plan,  whether  single  or  double,  in  a  separate  style  :  a  style 
of  its  own,  or  a  composition  of  the  st_yles  of  its  neighbours 
and  of  preceding  ages.  Nothing  human  remains  un- 
changed except  fundamental  ideas.  The  whole  effort  of 
nature  is  to  put  forth  buds  and  branches  on  every  side,  so 
as  to  realize  an  idea  to  the  utmost.  Nature  has  no  sympa- 
thy with  our  purist  prejudices.  She  is  no  quaker.  She 
never  grows  cold  and  stupid.  She  is  never  consistent ; 
she  is  always  ready  to  go  back  and  begin  again,  as  water 
when  stopped  by  some  obstruction  finds  new  channels 
that  suit  it  quite  as  well.  Every  style  has  had  its  own 
particular  and  peculiar  beauties ;  and  every  style  has 
begun  in  simplicity  and  grown  composite ;  or  become  de- 
graded, as  we  choose  to  say.  Every  original  symbolical 
form  has  been  taken  up  by  the  apprentices  of  the  master- 
mason  who  invented  it,  and  been  elaborated  and  intens- 
ified and  repeated  and  varied  in  all  possible  ways,  and 
combined  with  other  symbols,  until  its  personal  identity 
has  become  lost  amid  the  crowd  of  similar  forms;  until  its 
nature  has  been  perverted  and  its  meaning  contradicted 
and  its  eminence  exchanged  for  degradation,  and  its 
beauty  bartered  for  some  cheap  utility. 

As  in  eastern  lands  the  slave  becomes  sultan,  and  the 
sons  of  princes  have  their  eyes  put  out  and  become  beggars 
in  the  streets,  so  in  architectural  styles  the  fisher's  skiff 
lias  risen  to  be  a  cathedral,  and  the  pyramid  of  Cheops 
sunk  to  become  the  chamfered  point  of  a  graveyard  obelisk. 

It  was  in  obedience  to  this  oi-ganic  law  of  redupli- 
cation   and    variation     that    the    primitive    symbolism    of 


224  THE    GROWTH    OP  [lkcT. 

architecture  developed  itself.  You  remember  the  story  of 
the  Apostle  Paul  and  the  silversmiths  of  Ephesus,  whose 
trade  was  to  make  shrines  for  the  great  goddess  Diana.  It 
is  understood  by  antiquarian  schohirs  that  these  shrines 
were  small  portable  models  of  the  Ephesian  Temple,  perhaps 
intended  for  private  oratories,  like  those  plaster  shrines 
of  the  Virgin  Mary  which  good  Roman  Catholics  buy 
every  day  to  place  upon  their  dressing-tables  or  mantle- 
pieces.  So  in  the  earliest  times  the  more  celebrated 
monuments  of  architectural  magnificence  were  thus  re- 
duced for  private  devotion. 

The  same  desire  to  duplicate  the  symbol  provoked  the 
manufacture  of  ornaments  in  the  shape  of  temples ;  orna- 
ments not  only  for  the  person,  but  for  the  temples  them- 
selves. A  modern  instance  of  this  application  of  art  is  to 
be  seen  in  York  minster,  in  the  centre  of  which,  and  hung 
midway  between  the  vaulted  ceiling  and  the  floor,  or 
rather  I  should  say  supported  in  that  position  by  an 
arch-like  partition  in  the  church  called  a  rood  loft,  is  seen 
the  great  organ,  a  model  of  the  cathedral  itself.  Just  so, 
in  ancient  times,  the  idea  of  a  truncated  pyramid  snpport- 
insT  an  ark-like  cornice  was  thinned  down  to  the  idea  of  a 
square  column  supporting  a  box-shaped  capital. 

We  must  start  all  architecture  from  the  Pyramid ;  as  we 
must  draw  from  Ararat,  or  some  other  sacred  mountain,  the 
source  of  all  mythology.  R  R  ~  B  R  ^^^  *^®  *^^^  Egyptian 
or  hieroglyphic  name  for  a  pyramid.  All  architecture  was 
in  its  beginnings  bar-bar-ous,  that  is,  pyramidal.  The  term 
was  afterwards  extended  in  its  meaning  by  the  Greeks  to 
include  all  other  objects  foreign  to  their  refined  tastes  and 
their  artistic  religion.  They  called  the  Thracians,  the 
Phrygians,  the  Syrians  barbarians,  although  in  many 
respects  more  advanced  in  civilization  than  themselves,  not 
because  these  nations  committed  savage  acts  or  erected 
less  magnificent  monuments  than  the  Greeks  themselves, 
but  because  these  nations,  in  their  religious  architecture 
and  in  their  superstitious  rites,  preserved  a  large  measure 
of  that  Arkite  or  pyramidal  mythology  which  took  its 
name  from  the  pyramid  or  BAE-BAR  of  old  Egypt.* 

*  nipwiiig  (homo)  5e  tariKar'EWaSa  yXioffttnv  KaXbg    Kayct^oi;.     Kerod. 
LI.  143.      Uhlniann,  in  his  De   V'eteruin  Egyptorum  lingua  et  litteris. 


[X.]  THE    ALPRABKT.  225 

The  same  origin  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  obelisk,  tho 
Egyptian  name  of  which,  however,  was  T)(N.  Some  have 
talked  absurdly  enough  about  its  being  a  repi-esentation  of 
the  forthputting  powei*  of  nature.  Others  have  supposed 
it  an  invention  of  the  fire-worshippers  to  represent  a  tlame. 
But  the  first  appearance  of  fire-worship  in  Egypt  dates 
back  no  farther  than  the  17th  dynasty,  and  soon  became 
a  detested  heresy;  while  there  are  obelisks  of  the  12th 
dynasty. 

The  obelisk  was  merely  a  portable,  or  idealized,  or  ad- 
junct pyramid.     It  stood  isolated  in  front  of  the  pyramidal  ^ 
propylon.     When  the  propylon  was  duplicated  the  obelisk 
was  duplicated  also.     All  obelisks  are  terminated  above  in 
a  genuine  minute  pyramid. 

The  same  origin  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  solitary 
column  in  other  lands,  or  to  th.e  pairs  of  columns,  like  those 
which  stand  before  the  rock-temples  of  India.  Solomon 
made  two  to  stand  before  his  sanctuary  in  Jerusalem, 
calling  the  one  Boaz  and  the  other  Jachin.  And  the  Jews 
were  accustomed  to  plant  two  trees  in  every  garden  to  re- 
present these  columns. 

We  reach  next  in  order  of  development  the  arcade. 
The  Egyptians  had  already  used  it  for  their  inside  galleries 
and  temple-halls.  The  Greeks  and  Romans,  obliged  to 
roof  their  sacred  edifices,  placed  it  outside,  underneath  the 
gable  end  or  pediment;  increasing  the  number  of  columns 
from  four  to  six  and  eight,  and  finally  carrying  whole 
ranges  of  them  around  the  temple  cella.     The  pediment 

p.  31,  suggests  tLat  Herodotus  was  led  to  this  etymology  by  the  Egyp- 
tian (or  Coptic)  expressious  0p<ujo«,  pulcher,  /i»jt,  Justus  esse.  But  I  think 
it  quite  possible  that  Herodotus  rather  gave  the  Egyptian  sentiments  re- 
specting the  pyramid,  as  tlie  oldest,  most  sacred,  best,  and  most  beautiful 
thing  in  the  world.      On  page  27  Uhlmann  thinks,  from  the  fact  that  the 

Egyptian  pj/ramus  is  in  Arabic  f*ji>,  that  the  p^  is  no  essential  part  of  the 

word,  but  only  the  Coptic  article;  while  pa(xa  is  the  Egyptian  M'ord  for 
height,  as  it  is  in  Hebrew  (Kirch.  Scala.  M.  49).  Compare  Rossii  Etym. 
-^gypt.  159.  Kitto's  Bibl.  Diet.  Other  etymologies  have  been  proposed, 
such  as  7r-o8po/3«,  sepulchre  of  kings,  but  the  subject  is  still  in  the  dark. 
Comparative  philologists,  however,  will  agree  with  me  that  nvpiiid  is 
directly  convertible  into  (3ap-l3ap,  or  vice  versa,  and  that  in  the  absence  of 
any  universally  accepted  etymology  for  wvpafiig,  tlie  Egyptiiui  synonyme 
given  in  the  text  above  is  perfectly  good  ground  for  a  new  theory  to  stand 
upon. 

15 


220  THE    GUOWTH    OP  [lECT. 

whicli  thej  supported  was  but  another  pyramid  elevated  in 
the  air.  The  words  ijyramid  and  pediment  are  the  same 
in  their  alphabetic  elements.  It  was  in  the  tympanum 
of  the  pediment  that  the  Greeks  assembled  the  images 
of  their  Olympic  deities.*  The  whole  roof  of  the  Grecian 
temple,  although  so  different  in  outside  form,  was,  in  the 
general  plan,  identical  with  the  upper  or  ark  member  of 
the  structure.  The  Eomans,  not  content  with  this,  went 
one  step  farther  and  placed  upon  the  peak  of  tlie  pediment 
an  URN. 

I  must  stop  for  a  moment  to  enforce  the  argument  I  am 
pursuing  with  a  definition  of  this  remarkable  word.  We 
think  that  it  is  merely  the  Latin  urna,  which  has  become 
the  property  of  all  the  Eomanic  languages.  But,  in  fact, 
the  Latins  received  it  from  the  East.  It  is  nothing  more 
or  less  than  the  Hebrew  name  for  the  Ark  of  the  Coreyiant 
AEN  (]~i}«}).  But  we  can  go  still  farther  back.  It  was  the 
Egyptian  name  for  the  cartouche. 

Now  the  cartouche  is  an  oval  enclosure  containing  the 
hieroglyphic  letters  which  make  a  royal  name.  The 
Pharaoh  in  his  sarcophagus  or  urn  Avas  symbolized  by  his 
name  in  its  cartouclie  or  ARN.  The  Romans  merely  applied 
the  word  to  express  a  coffer  of  peculiar  shape  made  to 
preserve  the  ashes  of  the  dead.  The  modern  urn  is  the 
lineal  descendant  of  the  symbolic  sarcophagus  of  Osiris, 
and  of  the  ark  of  Noah. 

Look  at  its  peculiar  shape  (Fig.  4).  It  consists  of  a  com- 
bination of  the  same  two  members,  the  ark  upon  the 
mountain  top,  which  I  before  described  as  constituting  the 
essential  parts  of  every  piece  of  architecture.  This  urn 
the  Romans  placed  upon  the  top  of  the  temple  pediment. 

Architects  have  capped  the  temple  with  a  dome  to  du- 
plicate and  make  more  eminent  the  representation  of  the 
mountain,  and  have  placed  on  top  of  this  a  lily,  a  pine  apple, 
a  lantern  or  citpola,  to  represent  again  the  ark.  The  Mo- 
hammedans have  chosen  the  more  appropriate  ship  symbol 
of  the  crescent. 

The  same  compound  symbol  is  seen  inside  the  churches 
of  Christians  in  three  forms  :  first,  in  the  altar  (al-tor, 
the  mountain)    and  upon  it  the  communion  cup  ;  secondly, 

*  Compare  tlie  c;ip  on  tlir  head  of  Perseus,  ornamented  with  figures 
of  tlie  deities. 


3X.]  'HK    ALPHABET.  227 

in  the  baptismal  font  upon  its  spreading  sculptured  base  ; 
and  thirdly,  in  the  pulpit,  with  its  ark-like  box,  from  which 
the  preacher  prophesies,  and  with  its  quaintly-carved  stem 
below.  Its  very  name  puljAt  is  convertibly  identical  with 
pyramid  and  pediment. 

I  leave  a  fruitful  theme,  capable  of  infinite  and  delight- 
ful illustration,  as  any  one  may  see  who  enters  one  of  the 
mor  .rn  Catholic  churches  built  under  the  supervision  of 
the  Jesuit  priests,  where,  especially  about  the  sanctuary, 
symbol  is  piled  on  symbol,  each  one  the  mere  repetition  of 
the  other,  until  the  eye  is  wearied  with  confusion  and  the 
taste  disgusted  with  excess. 

Let  us  o-o  back  again  to  earlier  times  when  moderation 
and  simplicity  still  kept  the  symbolic  shape  of  ornaments 
sharply  cut  and  easy  to  be  recognized.  Let  us  take  for  a 
good  specimen  to  study,  the  Doric  column. 

The  Doric  Style,  so  called,  was  not  invented  by  that 
small  tribe  of  Grecian  people  called  the  Dorians.  As  I 
have  already  stated,  it  is  found  in  Lower  Egypt  in  archi- 
tecture of  great  antiquity.  It  would  almost  be  just  to  say 
that  the  Dorians  were  called  after  it.  They  were  worship- 
pers of  the  Tor;  and  the  Doric  column  became  in  their 
hands  the  purest,  simplest,  noblest  and  most  beautiful  of 
all  the  forms  that  the  architectural  idea  has  ever  assumed. 
Look  at  it.  Poets  and  painters  have  vied  with  each  other 
in  exhausting  the  vocabulary  of  admiring  epithets  to  de- 
scribe its  severe  simplicity,  its  exquisite  symmetry,  its 
grac'-ful  majesty,  the  charm  of  its  lights  and  shadows,  the 
sererity  of  its  unconscious  strength;  the  delicacy  of  its 
capital,  yielding  to  the  pressure  above,  yet  sustaining  the 
crushing  weight;  and  the  vertical  contrast  to  the  horizontal 
architrave  of  its  fluted  shaft,  rising  out  of  the  expanded 
marble  floor  of  stilobate  like  an  island-mountain  from  the 
placid  surface  of  the  sea.  For  that  is  just  what  it  was 
meant  to  represent.  Therefore  the  Doric  column  has  no 
base.  And  therefore,  also,  the  Doric  column  is  channeled 
like  a  mountain  with  valleys.  The  Doric  channels  are  the 
ravines  descending  to  the  water;  their  shape  is  quite  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  Ionic  or  Corinthian  flutes. 

Remember  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  product  of  the 
fancy  !  Eemember,  also,  that  the  early  fancy  of  mankind 
was  a  heated  fancy,  and  had  lost  none  of  its  fire  in  the  time 


228 


THE    GROWTH    OF 


[lect. 


of  Pericles.  It  was  a  religious  fancy,  an  unscientific  fancy, 
an  enthusiastic  fancy,  a  fancy  sticking  at  nothing  by  which 
it  could  reach  its  symbolistic  ends.  At  all  events,  it  was 
no  modern,  materialistic,  cynical,  critical,  mechanical, 
steam-engine  building.  Wall-street  or  State-street  jobbing 
fancy.  All  the  history  of  art  tells  us  that  it  was  finer  than 
our  judgment  of  it. 

I  have  already  mentioned  the  literal  exchange  of  L  for 
R  all  over  the  world,  and  the  fact  that  the  Greeks  and 
Phoenicians  said  tor  and  zur  where  Arabs  said  tol  and 
TEL  for  mountain.  So  the  Greeks  named  the  shaft  of  their 
Toric  column  otuAtj  (s-tol),  from  which  we  get  our  English 
word  style,  through  the  little  column-like  pencil  with  which 
the  scribes  wrote  upon  tablets  of  wax.*  Is  not  this  a  curi- 
ous illustration  of  our  proposition  that  the  men  of  letters 
in  old  times  were  the  architects?  But  I  will  give  you  now 
a  still  more  curious  and  significant  coincidence. 

The  favourite  Bg3"ptian  hieroglyphic  form  of  the  letter 
A  was  a   fenther,  plume  or  quill. f     It  stood  at  the  begin- 


Fifr.  0    A;    lU;  Goddess  Ma;  Truth;  Crowns  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt. 

ning  of  all  words  the  first  sound  in  which  was  A.  But  a 
jackal  holding  a  feather  was  the  emblem  of  a  acnbe.  On 
the  head  of  a  sitting  goddess  the  upright  feather  meant' 
historic  tndh.  MA,  the  goddess  of  truth,  had  two  featheis 
on  her  head ;  as  the  shrine  had  two  obelisks  before  it  on 
which  were  written  its  history.  The  double  letter,  A  A,  was 
originally,  therefore,  written  with  two  feathers,  which,  how- 
ever, in  time  came  to  stand,  in  the  later  alphabet,  for  the 
letter  I,  or  rather  the  diphthong  lU,  as  in  the  word  Judfea. 
Observe  the  coincidence  !  The  Coptic  Kord  A  A  means  to 
hiiild.  And  the  old  Egyptian  name  for  an  edifice  is  simply 
A,  the  single  letter  A.  The  scribe  and  the  architect  were 
one.  The  temple-wall  and  the  chisel  which  cut  those  im- 
mortal   hieroglyphics    into    its    surface    were    one.      The 

•  The  S  initial  stands  for  san.  Sacred. 

t  See  Bunscn,  p.  556  and  561,  and  Ideography,  No.  174,  173.     (Fig. 
6,  above.) 


iX.]  THE    ALPHABET.  229 

mountain,  tol,  became  a  carpenter's  tool;  the  column 
dwindled  to  the  engT-aver's  style ;  but  the  soul  that  lived 
and  spoke  in  all  of  them  never  changed  ;  it  was  the  same 
throughout  the  series. 

We  have  been  occupied  with  but  one  part  of  the  Doric 
column,  the  shaft  or  style  ;  let  us  now  look  at  the  other 
member  of  it,  the  capital.  There  are  etymologies  con- 
nected with  this  also.  I  have  said  more  than  once  that 
the  words  tol  and  tor  were  the  same  :  here  is  another 
proof  of  it.  King  James's  version  calls  the  capitals  of 
Solomon's  two  columns  chapiters.  You  will  find  no  ety- 
mology of  capital  in  the  books  except  in  the  form  of  a 
reference  to  the  Latin  capnt  a  head,  capitalis  principal. 
But  capitalis  will  not  explain  that  other  equally  Arkite 
word  the  name  of  the  Roman  capital,  that  citadel  which 
contained  its  native  gods,  its  treasures,  its  recorded  laws 
and  the  heart's  love  of  the  great  Republic.  Every  city  of 
any  note  in  the  ancient  world  had  a  similar  citadel,  the 
home  of  its  tutelary  deities.  And  what  was  such  a  citadel 
called  ?  An  arlc — of  course  :  ARX.  And  the  records 
which  it  secured — what  were  they  ? — ARChives. 

The  capitol  of  a  column,  then,  is  the  cap  of  its  tol,  or 
style;  the  ship  upon  the  mountain-top.  And  it  was  pre- 
cisely in  the  Doric  order  of  architecture,  the  shaft  of  which 
represented  the  mountain  idea  with  most  precision,  that  we 
have  a  capital  most  simply  and  purely  representative  of  the 
shi]).  When  I  thus  identify  cap  with  ship,  it  is  only  what 
is  done  every  day  in  using  words  similarly  allied,  one  of 
which  retains  and  the  other  has  lost  the  initial  s  :  such  as 
ciqt  and  s-coop ;  the  farmer  calls  his  cap-like  bee-hive  a 
x-cap  ;  the  sailor  calls  the  master  of  his  ship  a  s-Jcipper ; 
and  the  little  boat  from  shore  a  s-hiff. 

The  word  cv.i  signifies  holdinor  or  containinsr;  and  in 
such  modern  words  as  coop  the  form  of  the  vessel  is  not  at 
all  essential  to  the  meaning.  A  hencoop  is  not  at  all 
cup-shaped,  but  yet  acts  the  part  of  a  receptacle.  And 
even  the  Latin  cap-io,  I  take  or  hold,  suggests  no  form. 
But  at  the  beginning  the  form  was  essential  to  the  mean- 
ing. The  Hebrew  word  for  the  pa/??^  of  the  hand,  there- 
fore, was  CAjp  {'S]2),  because  it  throws  itself  into  the  form  of 
a  cup  to  receive  anything.  Many  names  of  sacred  shrines 
like  the  Kaaba  of  Mecca,  and  the  profane  little  Kaabahs 


230  THE    GROWTH    OP  [lECT. 

wiiicli  our  young-  ladies  find  so  convenient,  are  traceable  to 
the  same  root  which  gave  the  ship  its  name. 

Going-  back  beyond  the  Hebrew  use  of  the  word  cap  we 
get  still  clearer  light  upon  its  origin ;  for  the  arm  stretched 
upward  in  prayer  or  oblation,  with  the  palm  of  the  hand 
turned  upward,  is  one  of  the  commonest  sights  upon  the 
monumental  walls  of  Egypt.  Look  at  it  for  a  moment 
(Fig.  6),  and  see  how  the  Arkite  imagination  would  seize 
upon  this  living  symbol,  this  Doric  column  done  in  flesh 
and  blood.  The  Hebrew  word  for  arm  was  dro  or  toe 
(yii).*  The  hand  lifted  in  prayer  was  therefore  a  true 
caph-tor,  or  capital.  There  is  one  very  remarkable  ideo- 
graph on  the  Eg}  ptian  monuments  which  can  be  explained 
in  no  other  way  than  by  reference  to  these  facts.  It 
Bunsen'sNo.  99  (Fig.  6),  a  man  kneeling  and  hold-\ 
mg  up  a  basin,  with  the  pronunciation  n'ham,  and 
the  meaning  to  save.  What  has  the  holding  up  of  a 
basin  to  do  with  salvation  ?  Nothing,  unless  there 
be  a  reference  to  the  great  salvation  of  Arkite  mythology. 

Observe  now  how  our  English  word  arm  fits  into  all  this. 
In  drawing  your  attention  to  it,  I  am  not  digressing  ;  but 
on  the  contrary  leading  on  directly  to  the  main  subject  of 
this  lecture,  which  I  am  impatient  to  enter  upon  in  a  more 
systematic  manner;  but  all  these  preliminary  details  were 
necessary  and  will  come  of  use.  First,  let  me  once  more 
insist  upon  the  identity  or  interchangeability  of  the  liquids 
L  and  R.  Secondly,  you  must  accept  Grimm^s  law  as 
equally  true,  although  I  cannot  stop  to  prove  it  in  exfenso, 
that  the  labial  letters  B,  P,  F,  V,  the  vowel  U,  and  the  nasal 
M,  are  also  interchangeable  in  a  certain  order  in  all  lan- 
guages and  dialects  yet  studied.  Do  you  not  call  Maria  and 
Mary,  Molly  and  Polly?  Do  you  not  call  Martha,  Matty  and 
Patty  ?  Margaret  becomes  Maggy  and  Peggy,  &c.  Keep- 
ing this  law  in  mind  you  will  see  how  the  English  word 
ARM  corresponds  with  the  word  ALP  a  mountain,  pre- 
cisely as  the  Hebrew  dor  an  arm,  corresponded  to  the 
Phoenician  tor  and  the  Arabic  tel  a  mountain.  You  can. 
also  see  why  the  Mont  Blanc  of  Greece  was  called  OL^fMpos; 
and  why  the  mountain  beast  of  Asia  with  the  houdaJi  on 

*  »->T  the  arm,  the  shoulder  of  an  animal,  foroi-,  strength,  &c.     ■'^3  be- 
longs to  a  different  set  of  ideas,  regarding  the  arm  as  a  weapon,  or  a  too/. 


IX.]  THE    ALPHABET.  231 

his  back  was  called  an  "ELiTJiant ;  and  why  the  bull  with 
the  crescent  horns  received  the  Syriac  name  of  ALF.  The 
mountain  was  not  named  from  the  arm,  the  arm  was 
named  from  the  mountain,  and  then  only  when  held  up  in 
adoration,  with  some  votive  offering  in  its  hollow  palm. 
The  mountain,  the  alp,  was  the  beginning  of  all  things  in 
sacred  history.  Hence  all  ancient  things  were  named  after 
it.  Olympus  was  the  Ararat  of  Europe  and  curiously 
enough   replaces  Ararat  on  the  coat  of  arms  of  the  Duke  de 


Fig.  6.  Doric  column  ;  Caph  ;  n'ham  ;  tarn  ;  escutcheon  of  Nevers ;  Crown  of 

the  Pharaohs. 

Nevers  among  the  beautiful  sculptures  in  front  of  the  old 
chateau  in  the  middle  of  that  little  quaint  city  (Fig.  6).  The 
most  ancient  and  venerable  river  in  Greece  was  named 
ALFaro.s.  The  aborigines  of  Europe  were  called  ELVes.  The 
Latin  word  for  formerly  or  in  ancient  twips  was  OLiM.  The 
Heljrew  word  for  eternity,  or  unknown  infinite  beginning, 
wa<  OLM.  Heii^e  the  first  letter  of  the  alphabet  had  to  be 
ALFrt,  or  as  the  Shemites  called  it,  ALF.  And  its  shape  also 
had  to  be  Alpine,  like  its  name.  The  letter  A  is  simply  a 
pyramid  or  mountain  with  a  line  drawn  across  it.  In  the 
ancient  bardic  books  of  Ireland,  that  seat  of  the  learning 
of  old  times  in  the  Druidic  west,  whenever  the  word  moun- 
tain occurred  it  was  not  written  out  in  full,  but  in  its  place 
they  merely  wrote  a  letter  A;  that  was  sufficient. 

The  science  of  philology  as  it  now  stands  is  largely  made 
up  of  the  results  of  the  investigations  of  learned  men  into 
such  subjects  as  these : — ^Vhat  is  the  whole  number  of 
distinct  sounds  which  can  be  uttered  by  the  human  organs 
of  speech  ?  What  special  number  of  these  sounds  have 
been  selected  out  of  the  whole  number  for  use  by  different 
races  and  tribes  of  men  in  different  countries  ?  What  dis- 
tinction of  these  sounds  can  we  make  into  vowels,  semi- 
vowels and  consonants  ;  and  of  the  consonants  into  sonants 
and  snrds,  aspirates  and  sibilants,  labials,  dentals,  linguals, 
guttui'als  and  nasals  ?     What  relation  do  some  of  these 


232  THE    GROWTH    OF  [lECT. 

sounds  as  spoken  in  one  language  bear  to  others  of  them 
as  spoken  in  another  language;  in  other  words^  what 
is  the  real  nature  of  those  processes  of  transmutation, 
permutation^  inversion,  and  reduplication  of  sounds  which 
are  all  the  time  going  on  from  generation  to  generation, 
as  the  tribes  of  men  meet  and  influence  each  other^s  speech  ? 
How  can  we  understand  the  formation  of  dialects  ?  Wliafc 
are  the  true  derivations  of  words  ?  and  what  is  the  range 
of  those  modifications  which  time  keeps  making  in  the 
meanings  of  single  words  ?  An  immense  range  of  inve>ti- 
gation  into  which  I  could  not  pretend  to  enter. 

I  have  been  keeping  exclusively  in  view  one  special 
inquiry  :  what  was  the  origin  of  the  alphabet  ?  Why 
were  certain  figures  cut  upon  the  surface  of  stone  walls  to 
represent  certain  sounds  which  issued  from  the  human 
mouth  ?  On  what  principle  was  this  done  ?  Why,  for  in- 
stance, and  taking  the  first  letter  as  it  comes,  and  in  its 
archaic  Greek  or  Doric  form,  why  was  the  vowel  sound  A 
painted  to  the  eye  by  two  strokes  like  legs  and  a  third 
stroke  across  them  ?  What  is  there  in  the  sound  A  to 
suggest  such  a  shape  ?  Is  there  any  natural  connection 
between  the  two  things  ?  If  not,  then  is  there  any  arti- 
ficial connection  between  them ;  a,nj fanciful  connection? 
If  so,  what  governed  the  fancy  of  the  man  who  invented  the 
letter  A,  to  cause  him  to  establish  such  a  connection  ? 
Could  it  have  been  by  any  possibility  an  accident  ? 

This  question,  which  goes  down  to  the  very  roots  of  the 
science,  has  kept  many  brains  busily  thinking  in  all  ages  ; 
for  the  pure  and  direct  tradition  of  how  it  was  done  has 
been  lost  this  long  time,  and  it  must  be  rediscovered  in 
very  roundabout  ways.  Nature  loves  to  hide  the  begin- 
nings of  things,  and  seems  to  kill  off  her  early  creations 
merely  for  the  sake  of  giving  palgeontologists  a  chance  to 
develop  their  own  intellects  by  the  study  of  the  fossils. 
It  was  a  great  question  in  the  first  centuries  of  the  Chris- 
tian era  when  the  Talmuds  were  written,  and  the  Indian 
Puranas,  as  this  pretty  Oriental  story  may  show  you  : — 

When  Jesus  was  a  little  boy,  his  mother  Mary  took  him 
by  the  hand  and  seated  him  at  the  feet  of  the  village  school 
master  among  the  other  children  of  Nazareth.  When  his 
master  looked  upon  him  he  loved  him  and  stroked  his 
curly  hair   and  called  him  a  good  boy,  and  he  should  learn 


IX.]  THK    ALPHABET.  233 

his  a-b-c's.  So  lie  began  to  show  him  aleph,  the  first  letter 
of  the  alphabet.  '  But  why  is  it  called  aleph  ?  '  said  the 
boy.  '  Ask  not  vain  questions/  replied  his  master  kindly 
'but  proceed  with  the  next  letter  heth.'  'Not  so/  said 
Jesus ;  '  I  must  comprehend  the  first ;  for  God  maketh 
nothing  in  vain.'  Then,  taking  all  the  letters  in  order,  he 
expounded  unto  his  master  the  significations  of  all  their 
forms.* 

The  legend  does  not  inform  us  what  this  divine  commu- 
nication amounted  to.  But  there  is  an  Armenian  version 
of  it  which  gives  us  some  idea  of  what  it  was.  '  Behold/ 
said  Jesus,  '  how  this  letter  A  is  made  :  the  three  upright 
strokes  signify  the  three  persons  of  the  Trinity ;  and  the 
stroke  which  underlies  them  signifies  that  these  same  three 
are  one.'  To  comprehend  this  part  of  the  legend,  how- 
ever, we  must  notice  the  shape  of  the  letter  in  Armenian 
(Fig.  13,  p.  24'J).  We  must  remember  then  that  this  legend 
dates  not  merely  from  Christian  days,  but  from  a  time  sub- 
sequent to  the  Athanasian  and  Arian  controversy.  It  was 
an  Athanasian  accommodation  of  the  old  Arkite  trinity  to 
the  new  controversies  of  the  4th  century  of  the  Christian 
era.  But  it  was  no  mere  monkish  or  scholastic  whim. 
It  had  the  essence  of  the  old  truth  in  it.  Different  as  it 
looks,  this  strange-looking  Armenian  A  has  a  form  which, 
when  critically  studied,  is  essentially  identical  with  the 
Cadmean  A,  the  posture  of  the  form  only  being  varied,  as 
I  shall  show  directly. 

I  must  here  say,  that  one  of  the  most  remarkable  cir- 
cumstances connected  with  the  tradition  of  the  alphaliet 
is  the  apparent  indifference  which  the  sculptors  and  scribes 
who  invented  the  lettei's  exhibited  as  to  whether  a  letter 
stood  upright,  or  leaned  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  or  lay 
upon  its  side,  or  was  turned  topsy-turvy  so  as  to  stand 
upon  its  head.  We  are  not  to  suppose  any  greater  nicety 
in  writing  nor  any  greater  difficulty  in  reading  what  was 
written  five  thousand  years  ago  than  now.  No  doubt 
many  an  ancient  scribe  learned  to  write  as  badly  as  Rufus 
Choate  ;  or  as  that  superintendant  of  the  Michigan  Central 
Railroad  whose  angry  letter  of  remonstrance  and  warning 
about   keeping  his   cows   off"  the   track   wjis   used  by  the 

*  Norton,  Vol.  iii.  d.  270.  Discussion  of  tlic  Marcosian  sect  of 
Gno&lics  (W.  54,  2). 


204  THE    GROWTH    OF  [lECT. 

farmer  to  whom  it  was  addressed  as  a  free-ticket  on  the 
line  for  a  year. 

But  there  was  a  far  better  reason  for  this  indifference 
than  carelessness,  or  that  familiarity  which  breeds  con- 
tempt. If  the  earliest  letters  were  pictorial  symbols  it 
did  not  much  matter  how  they  stood,  provided  the  form 
which  conveyed  the  idea  was  kept  clearly  before  the  eye. 
If  any  one  out  of  several  possible  postures  became  a 
specialized  and  permanent  variation,  it  was  because  that 
posture  of  the  form  could  be  also  inade  as  symbolical  as 
the  form  itself.  Such  was  the  case  of  the  arm .  It  was  only 
when  the  arms  were  stretched  upwards  with  the  palms 
open,  that  they  could  typify  adoration,  praise,  admiration, 
holy  rejoicing  and  the  like.  You  see  it  thus  expressed  in 
the93rdideograph  of  Bunsen*slist(Fig.  7,p.235).  Its  sound 
was  haa ;  its  meaning  'to  rejoice;^  and  also  the  number 
100,000,000.  It  was  used  like  the  Chinese  exclamation  of 
astonishment  Hai-ah  /*  To  apply  this  symbol  of  venera- 
tion or  astonishment  to  a  special  subject  such  as  time,  some 
addition  had  to  be  made  to  the  symbol.  A  feather  (which 
meant  histo  y  and  truth  and  antiquity)  was  placed  upright 
upon  the  centre  of  its  head,  and  then  the  symbol  meant 
one  hundred  million  years,  or  in  other  words  an  astonish- 
ing length  of  time. 

But  when  the  arm  was  not  used  to  express  this  a!  of 
astonishment  or  veneration ,  but  merely  the  sound  a  as  it 
issues  in  a  simple  and  unimportant  manner  from  the  mouth, 
or  as  pronounced  at  the  end  of  words  and  through  the 
nose  like  the  ov  and  m  final  of  the  French,  or  like  the  nasal 
and  final  double  ^aa  of  the  Hebrew — then  the  arm  was  en- 
graved in  a  horizontal  positiou  at  the  bottom  of  the  word. 
We  see  it,  for  instance,  thus  in  that  bilingual  inscription  of 
*  the  great  Emperor  Xerxes,'  upon  an  alabaster  vase  in 
the  cabinet  of  antiquities  in  the  Royal  Library  at  Paris 
(Fig.  8)  which  has  played  as  important  a  part  in  the 
discovery  of  the  lost  key  to  the  ancient  Assyrian  or  Cunei- 

*  The  94th,  95th,  and  96th  ideographs  are  variations.  The  arms  and 
neck  alone,  when  used  with  the  eagle  (a)  as  a  complement  (Fig.  7),  sig- 
nifies the  letter  k,  or  sound  KA,  as  in  kam,  black  ;  skai,  to  plough  ;  kaut, 
to  huild  ;  K(i,  a  bull,  goat,  to  receive  :  nifka,  copper  ;  ticn,  a  snark,  &c. 
I/umb  thinks  that  it  is  the  Hebiew  n  turned  upside  down,  oee  Hunsen's 
Phonetics,  p.  562,  vol.  i. ,  -Egypt. 


I 


n.] 


THE    ALPHABET. 


235 


Figure  8. 

Bilingual  luscriptiou  of  Xerxes,  on  an  Alabaster  Vase, 

in  the  Royal  Library  at  Paris. 


K  SK,  H 


■R  SK  ^ 


Ne       H 


Wu 


Note. — Hon  /it  nd  was  Paucnier  s  reading,     ic  is  now  read  Jr'er  aa  ve  aaa. 
House  great  the  greatest;  i.e.,  the  most  Sublime  Porte. 


236  THE    GROWTH    OP  [lECT. 

form  writing  as  the  more  celebrated  trilingual  inscription 
commonly  known  as  the  Rosetta  stone  had  previously 
played  in  Egyptology.*  In  the  upper  horizontal  range  of 
characters,  the  two  letters  A  and  the  two  letters  S  wero 
at  once  seen  to  correspond  to  the  two  letters  A  and  the 
two  letters  Sh,  in  the  hieroglyphic  group  in  the  cartouche 
below.  In  the  art  of  reading  a  correspondence  written  in 
cypher,  c'est  le  premier  jjdg  qui  coute,  a  right  beginning  is 
all  you  want.  Get  one  or  two  letters  of  the  alphabet  and 
the  rest  follow  as  obediently  as  a  skein  of  thread  when  you 
have  found  the  right  end.  But  the  hieroglyphic  A  here  is 
represented  by  an  eagle.  The  Egyptians  had,  in  fact, 
three  hieroglyphics  to  express  this  sound — the  single 
feather,  the  arm,  and  the  eagle.  The  feather,  as  I  have 
said,  standing  for  the  initial  long  AA  of  astonishment ;  the 
arm  standing  for  the  final  nasal  °aa ;  and  the  cngle  stand- 
ing for  a  sort  of  gently  aspirated  ^a,  which  there  is  no  need 
to  allude  to  farther. 

Now  what  I  wish  to  fix  your  attention  upon  is  the  shape 
of  the  Cuneiform  or  Assyrian  letter  A  in  this  inscription. 
Remember  what  I  have  been  saying  about  the  apparent 
indifference  of  the  ancient  scribes  to  the  position  of  the 
letters,  provided  the  form  was  what  they  wished  it  to  be. 
I  do  not  here  allude  to  the  position  of  the  letters  in  respect 
to  one  another  in  the  word;  although  that  too  is  a  very 
important  point  to  which  not  half  enough  attention  has 
been  given  in  the  science  of  language.  For  words  were 
written  indifferently  backwards  and  forwards ;  the  old 
Greek  inscriptions  are  written  alternately  backwards  and 
forwards,  from  line  to  line,  as  a  field  is  ploughed  by 
farmers;  and  they  actually  called  that  mode  of  writing 
'  boustrophedon/  that  is  '  oxen  turned.-'  And  you  see  that 
in  this  cartouche  the  Egyptian  scribe  has  done  the  same 
thing.  The  fact  is,  if  carving  the  letters  preceded  the 
writing  of  them  with  a  fen,  as  it  probably  did,  the  necessity 
for  using  a  pushing  or  striking  force  coming  from  the  right 
hand  is  apparent.     Nothing   can  be  more  awkward  than 

*  See  the  account  of  its  discovery  by  St  Martin,  and  its  complete  dis- 
cussion, in  G.  Pauthicr's  '  Essai  sur  rorii/inc  ri  la-  forniatioii  si/nilnire  drs 
ecriiuresjif/uratiocs  chimue  el  Er/j/pfii'iis.''  Paris,  1842.  Part  1.  |i.  l^t, 
et  seq.  '  Kshliarsha  Nch  Wuzurk--Kshairsha  Hon  Pe  Na=Xerxes  the 
Great.' — bee  note  uu  page  2.jj. 


IX.]  THE    ALPHABET.  237 

writing  the  Hebrew  or  Arabic  letters  ;  but  nothing  is  easier 
or  more  convenient  than  engraving  them,  commencing  each 
letter  from  the  bottom  right-hand  corner.  The  Chinese 
write  from  the  top  of  the  line  downwards.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  county  land-surveyor  now-a-days  writes  his  field- 
notes  upwards,  from  the  bottom  of  the  page  to  the  top. 
All  this  has  caused  many  dialectic  variations  in  the  woi'ds 
of  cognate  languages  which  have  greatly  puzzled  philolo- 
gists ;  e.g.  the  Hebrew  kol  a  voice,  is  in  Greek  logos  ;  the 
(ireek  gala  milk,  is  in  Latin  lac  ;  and  if  I  had  time  to  go 
through  the  whole  alphabet  with  you  I  would  have  to  use 
this  law  of  inversion  to  explain  many  things ;  as  e.  g.  how 
the  Theb,  or  ark  of  Noah,  came  to  be  pronounced  Beth, 
the  second  letter  of  the  Shemitic  alphabet,  and  Bath , 
meaning  both  a  house  or  temple  -and  a  daughter,  or  the 
virgin  goddess  of  the  temple. 

But  my  object  in  this  course  of  lectures  has  been  rather 
to  state  principles,  to  describe  methods  of  thought,  than  to 
cram  the  imagination  with  detailed  facts  and  subordinate 
results  ;  and  I  keep  to  the  discussion  of  the  letter  A,  not 
for  the  sake  of  any  special  pre-eminence  that  it  may  have, 
but  as  affording  a  good  example  of  the  method  which 
governed  the  alphabet-making  mind  of  antiquity. 

You  see,  then,  that  the  position  of  the  form  of  the  letter 
itself,  that  is,  its  j^osture,  was  so  variable  that  it  could  be 
laid  upon  its  side,  and  turned  over  upon  its  head,  ap- 
parently without  inconvenience.  Mark  me,  I  say  apparently, 
not  really.  Those  old  wise  men  knew  what  they  were 
about.  Their  fancy  was  as  dogmatic  as  our  logic,  and  loved 
etiquette  and  punctilio  as  well  as  our  natural  science  does. 
If  the  old  Assyrian  scribes  wrote  the  letter  A  thus  fTl  with 
three  upright  strokes  and  a  fourth  stroke  laid  across  on  top; 
aud  the  Armenian  scribes,  many  centuries  afterwards,  saw 
tit  to  reverse  their  letter  A  thus  I  I  I.  that  is,  three  upright 
strokes  and  a  fourth  laid  underneath  — they  certainly  had 
some  dogmatic  reason  for  doing  so.  And  the  Marcosian 
legend  of  the  little  Jesus  tells  us  what  that  was;  'to 
teach  us,'  said  the  little  master,  '  that  the  beginnings  of  all 
things  is  one  essence  in  thi'ee  persons.^  But  why  would  not 
the  stroke,  when  drawn  ahoce  do  as  well  as  when  drawn  he- 
low?  The  Egyptians  expressed  the  emanations  from  the 
sun,  unnlii/hf,  by  three  waved  lines  descending  from  a  circle 


238  THE    GROWTH   OP  [lECT. 

surrounding  a  dot;  and  the  ancient  Chinese  expressed 
spiritual  emanations,  spirit,  genius,  genii,  by  three  strokes 
beneath  a  fourth  horizontal  stroke.  And  although  thi-< 
figure  received  another  small  horizontal  stroke  subsequent- 
ly, its  meaning  remained  the  same,  and  has  been  considered 
so  important  that  it  forms  the  key  to  an  entire  class  of 
Chinese  words,  viz.  all  those  which  relate  to  the  spiritual 
intelligence  of  mankind,  the  power  of  expressing  thoughts 
in  words,  the  power  of  giving  names  to  things.  Its 
ancient  and  its  modern  form  are  both  given  in  Fig.  9. 
p.  245.  It  is  called  chi,  and  means  monere,  significare,  prce- 
cipere,  ostendere,  resjdcere,  docere,  per  scripturam  signiji- 
care* 

But  the  Athanasian  theology  was  not  so  easily  satisfied ; 
it  had  a  certain  technical  expression  to  employ,  viz.  '  the 
hypostdtical  relation  of  three  persons  in  one  God.'  If  you 
look  in  Greek  dictionaries  for  the  word  hypostdsis,  you  will 
be  rather  astonished  to  see  no  theological  allusion  whatever 
in  its  meaning ;  for  it  stood  to  the  Greek  farmer  for  no- 
thing but  loine  lees.  It  meant  simply  what  our  chemists 
would  call  a  precipitate.  But  it  was  made  up  of  two  words, 
— hupo  under,  and  histemi  to  stand;  and  its  orig-inal 
meaning  must  have  been  something  fundaracntal  or  at  tlu 
hoitorn.  Angry  theologians  got  to  hurling  this  word  at 
each  other's  heads  with  this  older  meaning  which  perhaps 
it  still  retained  in  the  learned  world.  The  hypostatical 
union  of  the  three  Divine  persons  meant  their  fundamental 
union,  their  personalities  rooted  in  a  common  undei-lying 
substance  or  substratum.  The  Scribes  could  do  no  less 
than  the  Pharisees.  The  letter  which  had  come  down  to 
them  from  Assyrian  days,  bearing  its  Arkite  significatiuu 
of  eternity  and  divinity,  the  beginnings  of  things  and  the 
stuft'of  the  world's  phenomena,  suited  their  purpose  exactly, 
provided  they  took  the  fourth  stroke  which  joined  the 
tops  of  the  other  three,  and  put  it  below,  making  it  hypo- 
statical   or fundaynentnl. 

Going  back  now  to  the  Cadmean  or  Alpine  form  of  the 
letter  A,  will  you  demand  that  I  bring  it  into  similar  re- 
lationship with  the  Armenian  and  Assyrian  forms  ?  The 
demand  would  be  just  if  1  asserted  that  the  Cadmean  idea 

*  French  Dictionary,  p.  489.     Also  see  the  113th  Key,  Kij. 


IX.J  THE    ALPHABET.  239 

of  the  letter  was  precisely  the  same  as  the  Assyrian  or 
Armenian  idea  of  it.  But  all  alphabets  were  not  made  in 
the  same  age,  nor  by  the  same  people,  nor  under  the  same 
set  of  influences.  All  1  wish  to  hint  this  evening  is,  that, 
taken  as  a  whole,  and  in  the  earlier  ages  of  literature,  a 
general  Arkite  mythology  governed  the  fancy  of  men  and 
therefore  shaped  all  their  attempts  at  expressing  their  re- 
ligious and  historical  ideas  both  in  architecture  and  in 
writing ;  and  that  the  traces  of  this  mythology  exist  under 
all  modifications  of  the  forms  of  letters  in  all  alphabets 
even  to  the  present  time. 

The  origin  of  the  curious  iv edge  form  of  the  Assyrian  let- 
ters has  not  been  explained.  The  scribes  who  wrote  the 
archives  of  Xineveh  and  Babylon  upon  clay  cylinders  could 
have  made  their  lines  or  strokes  as  straight  and  smooth  as 
the  Romans  who  wrote  on  wax  made  theirs.  Letters 
made  with  such  skill  and  care  that  they  cannot  be  read 
sometimes  without  the  help  of  a  magnifying  lens  (a  proof, 
by  the  way,  that  the  lens  was  two  or  three  thousand  years 
older  than  the  time  of  Galileo)  show  that  the  writers 
could  do  anything  in  the  way  of  neat  writing,  and 
that  they  must  have  been  inspired  with  some  special  re- 
verence for  letters  made  with  strokes  in  the  shape  of  a 
wedge,  or  rather  arrowhead.  Now  Layard  has  figured 
among  other  things  found  in  Assyria  an  altar  on  which 
reposes  a  gigantic  arrowhead,  half  as  large  as  the  altar 
itself — as  large  in  proportion  in  fact  as  a  sheep  or  a  calf 
would  be  if  laid  upon  the  altar.  Lying  thus  upon  the 
altar  it  must  be  considered  as  a  sacred  object  offered  to 
some  God.  Or,  if  the  altar  be  merely  a  pedestal,  then  the 
arrowhead  must  be  regarded  as  a  divinity.  But  the  arrow- 
head is  just  the  shape  of  the  Cadmean  letter  A  ;  is  Alpine 
in  the  Arkite  sense  ;  was  used  in  divination  ;  carried  the 
ureat  hyperborean  Druid  Abaris  in  Greek  fable  on  its 
back  to  Delphi;  and  was  as  appropriate  an  offering  as  the 
fir-cone,  or  as  the  little  pyramid  held  in  the  open  palm  of 
the  Egyptian  priest.  What  connection  may  hereafter  be 
traced  between  this  worship  of  the  arrowhead  in  Mesopo- 
tamia and  the  use  of  flint  weapons  by  the  people  of  Central 
Asia  in  the  Stone  age  I  will  not  venture  to  conjecture. 
It  is  enough  for  my  present  purpose  that  the  construction 
of  the  Assyrian  letters  out  of  arrowhead-shaped  strokes 


240  THE    GROWTH    OF  [lECT. 

gave  them  a  peculiar  sanctity  or  significance  in  an  Arkite 
sense,  and  converted  them  all  into  Alpine  hieroglyphics. 

Confining  ourselves  therefore  still  to  this  Alpine  or 
pyramid  symbol,  let  me  ask  you  how  an  ancient  scribe 
would  be  likely  to  make  a  letter  out  of  it.  Would  it  not 
be   in  one  of  these    four  ways  ?  If  he   worked  in  a 

Chinese  spirit,  scorning  perspective,  he  would  use  four 
diverging  strokes  to  express  its  four  sloping  angles.  If 
he  were  a  true  artist  he  would  use  three  diverging  strokes, 
the  middle  one  perhaps  a  little  on  one  side  for  the  sake 
of  perspective.  If  he  were  a  literal  fellow  he  would  use 
two  strokes  and  be  satisfied  with  that.  But  if  he  were  a 
transcendentalist  he  would  use  but  one  vertical  stroke  to 
represent  the  essential  idea  of  isolated  height. 

Neglect  the  first  form  as  too  absurd  for  any  body  but  a 
Chinaman,  and  the  last  also  as  too  transcendental  to  have 
come  into  vogue  until  the  refinements  of  later  ages  pro- 
duced the  obelisk  out  of  the  pyramid  and  the  obeliskal  let- 
ters out  of  the  pyramidal,  it  remained  for  the  common 
Alpine  letter  to  be  made  of  either  two  or  three  strokes, 
joined  of  course  at  the  top.  Look  now  at  this  series  of 
ancient  Cadmean  letters,  of  which  No.  1  is  from  a  Greek 
boustrephedon  inscription,  the  fourth  is  Phoenician,  and 
the  rest  are  antique  (4reok. 

AAAMflAAxlK 

1234         56        78        9        10 

You  will  perceive  how  the  original  form  came  to  vary  so 
much  that  there  is  in  some  cases  now  scarcely  a  recog- 
nizable trace  of  its  original  intention.  Look  again  at  the 
initial  Sanscrit  A,  No.    11     of  the  following  forms;  and 

11         12         13       14      15      16       17  18 

when  you  remember  that  all  Sanscrit  letters  are  hung 
upon  a  sort  of  clothes-line  and  boxed  up  by  vertical 
strokes,   you   can  see  how   the  essential  three   divergent 


IX.]  THE    ALPHABET.  241 

liness  of  the  pyramid  may  come  to  form  the  cuneiform 
letter.  No    12  ;  and,  finally,  the  Armenian  letter,  No.  17. 

But  there  are  still  simpler  pyramidal  forms  for  the 
letter.  The  Runic  A  has  only  two  strokes,  No.  14;  and  so 
had  some  of  the  Roman  forms  of  the  time  of  the  Christian 
era,  Nos.  15,  16,  as  well  as  the  Moeso-Gothic,  No.  18. 

But  there  is  an  Irish  form  of  great  antiquity,  used  ex- 
tensively in  Europe,  which  has  a  peculiar  significance, 
No.  18,  formed  of  an  horizontal  stroke  across  the  summit 
of  two  others.  By  reference  to  this  upper  stroke  I  think 
we  reach  a  complete  understanding  of  the  Arkite  ideas  of 
the  early  alphabet-makers.  But  to  make  this  clear  I  must 
speak  of  another  element  of  alphabetic  writing,  the  water- 
symbol. 


:^OiiSMN 


19  20  21         22       23  24 

The  Egyptian  hieroglyph  for  water  was  three  horizontal 
waved  lines,  often  reduced  to  one.  In  process  of  time 
this  became  merely  a  straight  horizontal  line.  Out  of  this 
Egyptian  hieroglyph  the  Greeks  made  their  sharp  hissing 
X  (H,  f),  and  the  Assyrians  their  cuneiform  S,  No.  21. 
The  early  Greeks  made  these  lines  waving  like  the  Egyp- 
tian, but  the  classic  Greek  alphabet  converted  the  waved 
into  straight  lines.  The  Greeks  and  Romans  used  the 
same  Egyptian  water-symbol  for  the  simple  sibilant  s; 
but  they  stood  it  up  straight.  No.  22 ;  because  water 
never  hisses  except  when  it  rises  in  a  jet  or  falls  in  a 
cataract.  When  they  desired  an  alphabetic  letter  to  ex- 
press the  rmirmuring  sound  of  water  as  upon  the  sea  shore 
they  preserved  the  original  horizontal  posture  of  the  sym- 
bol ;  and  hence  our  MMs  and  NNs.  The  most  ancient 
Egyptians  did  not  recognize  in  their  alphabet  the  hissing 
sound  of  water :  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  why,  unless  it 
might  have  arisen  from  the  scarcity  of  rain  and  mountain- 
torrents,  cascades  and  jets  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  It 
is  a  curious  fact  also  that  they  employed  their  water-symbol 
for  their  letter  N ;  whereas  for  M  they  chose  the  figure  of 
an  owl. 

These  two  sounds  of  water  are  recognized  more  or  less 

ifi 


242  THE    GROWTH    OP  [lECT. 

distinctly  in  all  human  languages.  For  instance,  in  our  owe 
English  we  have  two  names  for  the  great  and  little  waters 
of  the  earth  :  the  former  we  call  the  Main,  as  the  Hebrews 
called  it  Mtm  The  latter  we  call  Seas.  In  eastern  myth- 
ology the  name  of  the  hundred-headed  sea-serj)ent  on 
which  Vishnu  sits  is  in  Sanscrit  Shi-shl.  The  name  of  the 
Syrian  Noah  was  Xisuthrus. 

The  soft  hissing  sound  of  Z  in  Italy  had  the  same  water 
form.  The  dental  sibilant  of  the  Greeks,  0,  was  originally 
represented  by  the  Egyptian  zig-zag  waterline  surrounded 
by  a  circle.  It  was  reduced  afterwards  to  a  line,  and 
finally  to  a  point  or  dot.  In  Arkite  symbolism  this  letter 
had  a  special  function  in  signifying  things  surrounded  by 
water.  Thus  holy  Mount  Athos  received  its  name,  A0, 
because  the  A  represented  a  mountain,  and  0  signified 
that  it  was  surrounded  by  the  sea. 

Let  us  return  once  more  carrying  with  us  now  this  water- 
symbol  to  the  discussion  of  the  letters  that  were  founded 
on  the  mountain  idea.  The  diluvial  mountain  could  be  re- 
presented in  three  ways:  either  in  the  air,  or  partially  sub- 
merged, or  wholly  submerged ;  in  other  words,  the  water- 
symbol  line  could  be  drawn  across  it  at  the  bottom,  in  the 
middle,  or  at  the  top.  The  first  would  make  the  Greek 
letter  delta,  A,  the  simple  mountain  tol  or  tor  — our  letter 
D.  The  second  made  the  Greek  letter  alpha,  A.  The 
third  gives  us  the  Irish  and  Gothic  letter  a,  No.  18  above. 
The  Runic  alphabet  of  northern  Europe  adds  additional 
confirmation  to  these  facts,  by  giving  a  pyramidal  form 
to  its  letter  t,  the  equivalent  of  the  Greek  d,  and  by  calling 
it  by  the  same  name  Tyr. 

Finally,  to  show  the  connection  of  the  pyramid  and 
obelisk  in  alphabetic  forms,  as  in  architecture,  it  is  only 
needful  to  contrast  the  A  and  T  (or  D)  in  respect  of  this 
horizontal  waterline,  with  all  the  other  letters.     These  are 


the  only  two  letters,  carrying  the  waterline,  in  the  old 
cuneiform  alphabet ;  just  ns  they  stand  apart  from  all  the 
others  in  the  Cadmeau  alplmbets  of  the  west  in  carrying 


i 


IX.l  THE   ALPHABET.  243 

it ;  as  may  be  seen  in  the  following  .series.  Tht  dj,  No.  27, 
and  sh,  28,  are  no  exceptions,  for  they  are  evidently 
subsequent  modifications  of  the  older  simple  d,  No.  26. 
Nor  is  it  less  a  significant  fact  that  the  only  other  letter 
besides  a,  made  with  three  vertical  strokes,  is  the  letter  th, 
No.  31. 

i  could  adduce  still  a  number  of  other  instances  of  the 
essential  similarity  between  these  two  letters.  But  I  have 
already  far  transgressed  the  extent  to  which  I  had  intended 
to  carry  the  illustration  of  the  subject.  As  I  said  at  the 
outset,  it  is  impossible  to  do  more  than  to  give  you  some 
idea  of  its  richness;  and  to  suggest  a  method  of  inves- 
tigation which  will  be  likely  to  yield  the  best  results. 

Each  letter  of  the  alphabet  might  be  taken  up  in  its 
turn  and  its  original  mythological  significance  developed 
by  comparison  with  other  letters  in  the  same  alphabet  and 
other  forms  in  other  alphabets.  For  instance,  the  liquids 
L  and  B,  were  used  to  represent  the  flowing  of  water, 
sliding  and  slipping  actions,  continuance,  and  all  that  class 
of  ideas.  Mythological  explanations  come  in  everywhere. 
Rhea  the  goddess  of  the  flood,  from  petv  to  flow,  and 
geographical  names  like  Rhine  and  Rhone  are  good  illus- 
trations. Invention,  design,  the  regulated  fancy  of  a  learned 
caste  appear  at  every  step.  The  natures  of  the  letter- 
sounds  were  critically  studied  and  ingeniously  applied,  as 
in  the  Greek  word  aet,  (always)  constructed  out  of  vowels 
in  a  definite  order  so  as  to  express  continued  existence. 

In  a  word,  words  were  designedly  built  up  by  the  old 
scribes,  by  placing  the  letter-symbols  in  all  sorts  of  well- 
devised  positions  and  relations  to  each  other,  until  the 
Arkite  fancy  was  exhausted  and  satiated  with  its  work 
or  play ;  and  then  fresh  crops  of  Arkisms  took  root  in 
these  strange  compositions,  and  new  series  of  fables  sprang 
from  them  again  to  delight  the  taste  and  feed  the  venerat- 
ing instinct  of  other  generations. 

But  before  bidding  adieu  to  this  whole  subject  to  pass  to 
quite  a  diff"erent  one  in  the  next  lecture  I  must  say  a  word 
respecting  the  history  of  the  growth  of  the  more  ancient 
alphabets. 

The  history  which  Chinese  scholars  give  of  the 
growth  of  their  own  language  is  precise  and  authentic, 


244  THE    GROWTH    OF  [lECT. 

although  their  literature  will  not  compare  for  antiquity 
with  that  of  Egypt.  The  most  ancient  book  they  have,  is 
supposed  to  have  been  written  somewhat  more  than  1000 
years  before  Christ,  that  is,  before  the  time  of  King  David. 
It  is  called  Y-King  or  the  hook  of  transformation-^.  In  a 
supplement  to  it  called  Hi-thseu,  edited  by  two  learned 
Chinese  of  the  11th  century  before  the  Christian  era,*  we 
find  this  account  of  the  orig^in  of  Chinese  writin»" :  'In  old 
times  Paoi  or  Fou-hi  governed  the  world ;  and  lifting  up  his 
eyes,  saw  figures  in  the  sky ;  and  casting  down  his  eyes, 
saw  models  of  them  on  the  earth,  in  the  forms  of  birds  and 
beasts,  and  in  the  proportions  of  the  earth.  From  these 
near  and  distant  objects  he  began  to  trace  out  the  eight 
symbols  (koua),  to  penetrate  the  meaning  of  the  divine 
intelligence,  and  to  classify  therein  the  properties  of  things 
by  genera.' 

An  ancient  commentator  upon  this  book  explains  that 
the  fundamental  distinctions  involved  in  this  classification 
were  those  of  the  fixed  and  the  mobile,  the  resisfing  and  the 
yielding;  which  correspond  very  well  to  the  western 
mountain  and  ivater  symbols.  He  adds  that  the  geneinc 
figures  were  those  of  lakes  and  mountains,  wind,  thunder, 
&c.  He  then  goes  on  farther  to  explain  that  Fo  formed 
his  letters  by  six  rules.  By  the  1st  he  imitated  the  objects 
themselves  ;  by  the  2nd  he  combined  these  imitations  into 
groups ;  by  the  3rd  he  inverted  their  meanings ;  by  the 
4th  he  invented  determinative  marks  to  express  accidents, 
*  high  and  low  '  for  instance ;  by  the  5th  he  gave  his  letters 
metaphorical  meanings ;  by  the  6th  he  showed  by  letters 
the  sounds  of  things.  Pauthier  names  these  six  classes  of 
letters:  1.  The  Figurative;  2.  The  Qualitative;  3.  The 
Composite;  4.  The  Polar  or  Antithetic;  5.  The  very 
numerous  class  in  which  an  image  of  the  object  is  given 
and  with  it  another  character  to  express  the  sound  of  its 
name;  6.  The  Abstract  or  Figurative.  He  gives  five  or 
six  characters  as  examples  of  each  class,  from  which  I 
select  but  one  to  show  the  plan  upon  which  it  was  con- 
structed and  the  change  its  shape  has  undergone  in  course 
of  time. 

*  Wen-wang  and  Tclieou-Koung;  see  Pauthier's  Essay,  page  3,  et 
seq.  The  commentator  takes  occasion  to  remark  that  before  Fo's  time 
men  employed  knotted  cords  in  tlie  administration  of  affairs. 


II 


rx.| 


THE    ALPHABET. 


245 


For  example: — Fig.  9. 


1st  Class, 
Imitative. 

2iid  Class, 
Qualitative. 

3rd  Class,      1 
Composite,     j 

4tli  Class, 

Polar  or 

Antithetic. 

5tli  Class, 

very  numerous, 

Image  and 

Sound 
combined. 

6th  Class,       "j 

Abstract,  or     !■ 

Figurative.     J 


Qj     the  sun :     now  written         Hj 
y      morning:     „  „  J^ 


■i4 


(^  jVj  (sun  and  moon) 

Jy  light :  now  written 

n^  left 

-^\  right 


\\\   spirit,  genius 


chi 


i> 


from  on  high 


heart, 
i.e.  soul 


In  Fig.  9  above.  No.  1  is  the  Sun,  represented  as  on  the 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  by  a  disc  with  a  dot  in  it;  2. 
Morning,  by  a  solar  disc  above  a  horizon  line;  3.  Light, 
by  the  two  figures  of  the  sun  and  moon  combined :  4. 
Left  and  right,  by  skeleton  human  figures,  without  legs,  bow- 
ing different  ways;  5.  Spirit,  or  genius  sent  from  above,  by 
three  slightly  waved  lines  depending  from  a  horizontal  line, 
meaning  the  sky  ;  6.  Soul  or  affection,  by  a  heart.  Many 
other  and  finer  examples  might  with  a  little  care  be 
selected.  The  best  description  1  have  seen  of  the  figurative 
cunning  of  the  inventors  of  the  ancient  Chinese  characters 
is  in  H.  Noel  Humphreys^  History  of  Writing.  Take^  for 
instance,  the  three  signs  following  : — 


f\ 


folding  doors; 


^^^1— g.  f^ 


asking  a 
question. 


ear. 


mouth. 


246  THE    GROWTH    OP  [lECT- 

Or  these : 

Jr^    singing  bird  j        H'    sansiiino,      >^\.    obscuntj. 

bird.  tree. 

The  passage  of  the  figurative  into  the  phonetic  is  accom- 
plished under  class  Y.  by  a  union  of  the  two;  thus,  a 
duck  is  not  only  drawn,  Fig  10,  but  has  a  character  added 
to  express  the  sound  of  its  name  ki.  A  willow  is  repre- 
sented by  a  tree  and  the  phonetic  ki.  A  root  is  repre- 
sented by  a  tree,  and  a  phonetic  ken.  &c. 

Fig.  10. 

1^    rK^     It 

Ki  Ki  Ken 

Rude  as  this  method  is,  it  was  the  one  adopted  also  by 
the  inventors  of  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics.  In  fact,  these 
phonetic  adjuncts  are  little  else  than  the  mafres  lectionis  of 
the  Hebrew,  in  the  essential  genius  of  their  purpose. 

There  are  some  remarkable  fables  relating  to  this  inven- 
tion of  the  great  Cadmus  of  the  East,  which  throw  a  new 
light  upon  its  nature.  In  one  passage  it  is  said  that  Fo 
got  the  external  ^orms  of  things  from  the  heavens,  but  his 
letter -figures  he  saw  '  upon  the  -picture  luhich  issued  before  him 
from  the  ivafers.'  And  this  mystic  Arkite  description  of  the 
nature  of  the  origin  of  letters  does  not  by  any  means  stand 
alone.  It  is  repeated  by  other  writers,  and  in  other  forms, 
and  has  no  doubt  some  deep  significance.  Men  whose 
books  are  filled  with  practical  wisdom,  humour  and  wit, 
shrewd  sarca.sm  and  a  refined  fancy  do  not  utter  what 
seems  the  sheerest  nonsense,  the  folly  of  babes,  without  a 
cause. 

]jopi,  the  author  of  the  ancient  'book  of  itineraries,' 
writes,  that  Fohi  called  his  new  invention  Dragon-writing, 
because  he  found  it  in  marks  upon  the  back  of  a  Dragon- 
horse  ivhieh  rose  out  of  the  waves.  For  the  same  reason  all 
the  great  mandarins  or  scribes  in  early  days  were  denomin- 
ated dragons.  It  will  occur  to  you  at  once  that  Cadmus, 
whom  the  Greeks  considered  the  inventor  of  the  alphabet, 


i 


IX.]  THE    ALPHABET.  247 

obtained  his  colonists  by  sowing  tlie  teeth  of  a  dragon. 
The  hydra,  the  many-headed  dragon  of  Greek  fable,  as  its 
name  shows  represented  the  raging  waves  of  the  sea.  The 
Chinese  word  Shaii,  a  mountain,  is  expressed  by  a  charac- 
ter which  shows  three  teeth.  The  centaurs  of  Greece — 
half  maa,  half  horse — were  the  learned  men  of  that  heroic 
age,  '  the  priests  of  the  mountain,^  "Tlij  |,'-r")3 ;  and  their 
chief  initiated  Hercules  and  Achilles  into  all  the  mysteries 
of  learning  which  then  wei'o. 

Whatever  maybe  the  date  assigned  to  the  origin  of  the 
alphabet,  or  what  the  country,  the  fable  still  wears  this 
peculiar  mountain-water  or  Arkite  garb.  One  Chinese 
authority,  Hoai-nan-tseii  (189  B.C.)  asserts  that  Thsan-hie, 
crown  lawyer  to  the  Emperor  Hoang-ti  in  2698  B.C.  was  the 
inventor.  Another  fixes  on  a  somewhat  lower  date,  2357  B.C. 
But  here  again  the  fable  shows  itself  in  a  still  more  perfect 
form  ;  for  the  tortoise  has  always  been  the  living  and  walk- 
ing symbol  of  the  Tor,  the  Druid  under  his  tumulus  ;  and 
therefore  the  Indian  mythology  piles  the  earth  upon  the 
elephant  and  the  elephant  upon  the  tortoise.  The  great 
sea-tortoise  especially,  seen  with  his  back  above  the  waves, 
struck  the  ancient  Arkite  imagination  with  transcendant 
admiration.  So  the  story  goes  that  the  Emperor  Yao  in  the 
year  2357  b.c  began  to  trace  letters  in  imitation  of  the  cha- 
racters which  he  noticed  on  the  back  of  the  divine  tortoise 
which  was  brought  to  him  by  a  barbarian  family  from  the 
far  south.  This  tortoise  was  three  feet  wide  and  a  thousand 
years  old  ;  and  on  its  back  was  written  in  Kho-teau  cha- 
racters tlie  ivhole  liistory  of  the  world  from  its  heg inning. 
The  land  of  the  south  may  have  been  India,  or  Mesopo- 
tamia, or  Egypt,  for  all  that  we  know  to  the  conti'ary.  A 
similar,  but  long  subsequent,  arrival  of  learned  strangers 
about  1110  b.  c.  (a  date  not  very  far  from  that  of  Solomon's 
commerce  with  Ophir,  by  the  way  )  is  mentioned  in  the 
Li-tai-ki-sse.* 

After  describing  the  dragon-scrip  of  the  most  ancient 
times,  and  the  tortoise-shell  alphabet  of  the  24th  century 
before  Christ,  the  Chinese  historians  go  on  to  tell  us  that 
during  the  Han  dynasty,  i.  e.  from  2205  down  to  1766  B.C., 
the  people  got  used  to  writing  a  third   but  also  extremely 

*  Pauthier,  p.  10. 


248  THE    GROWTH    OF  [lECT. 

ancient  kind  of  characters,  such  as  are  seen  on  bells,  vases 
and  tripods  preserved  in  the  present  museums  and  palaces 
of  the  celestial  kingdom. 

When  the  Tcheoii  dynasty  came  in,  before  the  time  of 
Solomon,  113t  B.C.,  its  founder  introduced  a  new  modifi- 
cation of  the  alphabet,  called  the  bird  tracks,  Niao.  Soon 
afterwards,  that  is,  under  the  Wen-Wang  dynasty,  1110 
B.C.,  the  fish-gamhol  characters,  Nu,  came  into  vogue,  and 
every  kind  of  polite  learning  got  systematized.  It  was  at 
this  time  that  the  sage  Pao-chi  invented  the  five  rules 
of  politeness,  the  six  kinds  of  music,  the  five  methods  of 
archery  and  the  five  styles  of  horsemanship  ;  and  fixed  for 
all  succeeding  times  the  six  styles  of  writing  as  now  re- 
cognized by  all  Chinese  scholars. 

In  221  B.C.  Li-sse,  at  the  emperor's  command,  invented 
the  small  tcliovan  writing ;  but  it  was  rejected  except  for  the 
royal  signets ;  and  then  he  invented  the  ta  or  great  tcheuen 
writing,  a  most  artificial  and  fantastical  form  of  character 
wholly  different  from  those  that  had  been  in  use,  viz.  under 
the  Tchooii  dynasty,  880  B.C.,  which  scarcely  differed  from 
the  Kou-wen  or  ancient  figurative  forms  in  which  the  six 
Kings,  &c.  of  Khoung-tseu  and  the  great  Commentary  of 
Tso-kieov-meng  were  all  written. 

Then  came  the  dissolution  of  the  Emjoire  and  the  rise 
of  the  great  heptarchy  of  independent  provinces  which 
caused  local  modifications  of  the  characters  chiefly  due  to 
differences  in  artistic  taste.  One  of  these  provinces,  the 
easternmost,  ruled  over  by  a  dynasty  called  Han,  had 
wisdom  enough  to  throw  overboard  the  whole  literature  of 
the  past  and  attempt  to  open  for  the  national  mind  a  new 
career. 

Once,  only  this  once,  in  the  history  of  this  strange  na- 
tion there  seemed  a  chance  of  the  establishment  of  that 
tremendous  power  in  letters  which  changed  the  face  of  the 
intellectual  world  in  the  far  west ;  I  mean  a  pure  phonetic 
alphabet  such  as  gave  Greece  its  empire  over  thought 
and  Rome  its  empire  over  society  and  Palestine  its  throne 
of  grace  and  worship  over  Christendom.  Even  Egypt  knew 
enough  to  adopt  a  demotic  or  current  hand.  The  number 
of  Chinese  charactci's  amounts  to  80,000.  The  whole  num- 
ber of  Eg3^ptian  characters  in  Champollion's  Dictionary  is 
but  749.     Those  which  modern  science  is  content  to  use. 


IX.] 


THE   ALPHA BKT. 


149 


even  including  all  the  mathematical^  chemical  and  othc 
signs,  woiald  not  amount  to  many  more  than  a  hundj-ed. 
Wliat  China  would  be  now,  had  the  invention  of  the  bold  and 
easy  cursive  hand-writing  been  adopted  by  the  Han  dynasty 
in  A.D.  76  to  88  no  one  may  say.  But  the  purely  phonetic 
'bureau  hand/  t'sao  as  it  was  called,  would  probably  have 
set  the  soul  of  China  free  from  the  incubus  of  its  strange, 
fossilized,  monosyllabic,  uncompromising  characters,  which 
weiofhs  the  future  down  for  ever  under  the  load  of  all  the 
past.  But  the  experiment  did  not  succeed.  The  emperor, 
Hiao-ho-ti,  in  A.D.  89  while  John  was  writing  his  great 
Gospel,  annulled  the  new  invention  on  the  ground  that  it 
disturbed  the  public  education,  and  ordered  a  return  to 
'the  culture  of  the  ancient  hand  ;  on  which  his  head  gram- 
marian, Hiu-chin,  immediately  composed  a  treatise  in  40 
books,  which  sealed  the  fate  of  China  to  the  end  of  time. 
The  Chinese  characters  now  in  use  have  certainly  not 
varied  in  shape  since  the  year  618  of  the  Christian  era.* 

But  to  show  how  they  have  varied   since  the  invention 
of  letters  by  Fohi,   I  take  from   Pauthier  the  following 


specimens  of  the  three  ancient  styles,  called :  1.  the 
Kouwen,  of  the  highest  antiquity;  2.  the  Td-chouen,  of 
mean  antiquity ;  3.  the  Siao-clioven,  of  low  antiquitA-  ; 
followed  by,  4.  the  Li-chou,  or  bureau  character;  5.  the 
Hinci-chou,  common  or  current  hand  ;  6.  the  Thsao-chou, 
cursive  hand ;  7.  the  Kiai-choii,  square  .^eal  character ; 
and,  8.  the  Kini-hing-rlon  or  current  hand,  all  of  more 
modern  age.    Fig.  12  gives  the  original  So'areu  characters 

*  Pauthier,  p.  21. 


250  THE  GROWTH  OF  [lect. 

for  ^heaven/  '^man/  and  the  'savage  beast  sse/  followed 
by  the  modifications  of  form  to  which  they  were  subjected, 
corresponding  to  the  other  seven  styles  of  writing  suc- 
cessively coming  into  vogue  during  the  four  thousand 
years  which  have  elapsed  since  the  reputed  age  of  Fo. 

It  is  only  by  tracing  the  forms  of  the  Chinese  radicals 
back  through  their  various  transformations  to  their  original 
that  any  comparison  with  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphs  can 
be  made ;  but  when  this  is  carefully  done  important  analo- 
gies are  discoverable.  The  classification  of  ideas  common 
to  both  eras  has  been  made  upon  a  common  principle, 
which  was  in  fact  to  be  expected  from  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  the  human  mind.  But  in  some  instances  form^ 
are  also  common  to  the  two  systems,  establishing  some 
actual  historical  connection  between  the  two  such  as  is 
hinted  at  by  the  legends  cited  above. 


mkk\^twMmff 


AA/V\ 


12     13     14     15     10     17    18     19       20     21         22 

Figure  13  gives  the  twenty- two*  characters  which  the 
priests  of  Egypt  invented  for  determining  the  class  to 
which  any  particular  hieroglyphic  belonged,  when  its  pro- 
nounced or  written  name  would  not  of  itself  show.  The 
modern  alphabetic  writing  has  done  away  with  the  neces- 
sity   for   such    a  rude    device,  but   originally   some    such 

*  Pauthier's  Essai,  p.  103.  Uhleiiiann  gives  thirteen,  on  the  authority 
of  Ideler,  based  on  Champollion.     Bunsen's  list  is  more  extensive. 


IN.]  THE    ALPHABKT.  251 

Tuethod  was  indispensable.  For  instance,  the  difference 
between  sheep  and  shij?  in  English  is  made  in  writing  by 
using  in  one  case  two  vowels  e,  and  in  the  other  one  vowel 
i.  But  in  the  absence  of  vowels  it  would  be  necessary  to 
add  to  the  word  shp  some  sign,  in  the  one  case  a  rude 
picture  of  a  boat,  and  in  the  other  case  a  rude  sketch  of  au 
auimal.  This  is  precisely  the  mode  in  which  the  Egyptians 
used  the  following  determinative  signs,  standing  for — 1.  all 
names  of  gods;  2.  of  goddesses;  3.  of  men;  4.  women;  5. 
members  of  the  body  ;  6.  quadrupeds ;  7.  birds ;  8.  rep- 
tiles;  9.  fish;  10.  trees;  11.  plants;  12.  metals;  lo. 
stones;  14.  edifices  or  habitations;  15.  places;  16.  stars; 
17.  divisions  of  time;  18.  fire;  19.  fluids;  20.  things  noxious 
or  ecclesiastically  impure  or  unclean,  represented  by  a  spar- 
r<>w;  21.  scripture;  and  22.  actions. 

Under  these  I  have  arranged  a  selection  from  the  whole 
list  of  over  200  Chinese  radicals,  such  as  represent  the  same 
ideas,  bv  equivalent  denominative  signs.    These  are  named 
in  Chinese:   1.  Ky  (Radicals,  113,  119,  p.  489  of  the  Great 
French  DictionarV)  ;   2.  Mv,  p.   534;    3.  Jin,  9,   p.   8;  4. 
Nuu,  38,  p.  138;  '5.  Jo,  130,  p.  587 ;  0.  Nieou,  93,  p.  398 
7.  mho,  196,  p.  899;  8.  Tchong,  142,  p.  655;  9.  Yft,  195 
p.  891;  10.  Mo,  75,  p.  288;   11.  Tsao,    140,  p.  615;   12 
Peh,  154,  p.  724;   13.  Chy,  112,  p.  478;  14.  Mien,  40,  p 
145,  and  Yen.  53,  p.  177;   15.  Kin,  167,  p.  793,  Y,  163,  p 
779,  and  Febu,  170,  p.  818;    10.  Chin,  161,  p.  765;  17 
Jv,  72,  p.  274;  18.  Ho,  80,  p.  3t0;  19.  Chouy,  85,  p.  343 
20,  21.  Yu,  129,  p.  586;  22.  King,  144,  p.  672. 

The  principal  alphabets  to  be  studied  are  the  Punic 
the  still  but  partially  understood  Italic  or  Etruscan  group 
the  Phoenician,  Samaritan,  Hirayaritic,  iVrabic,  Hebrew, 
Coptic  and  Amharic;  the  Armenian;  the  three  ex- 
tremely ancient  cuneiform  alphabets ;  the  Davanagari  and 
other  alphabets  in  India;  the  Thibetan;  the  Burmese, 
Siamese  and  Singalese  of  farther  India;  the  Japanese 
and  the  Corean.  They  are  all  different  at  first  sight  from 
one  another,  and  some  are  comparatively  modern.  But 
when  critically  studied  they  are  all  found  to  be  allied  more 
or  less  distantly.  Of  all  these  the  Corean  is  the  most  per- 
fectly regular. 

Our  own  alphabet,  derived  from  the  ancient  Cadmean, 


262  THE    GROWTH    OP  THE    ALPHABET. 

is  theoretically  reducible  to  four  or  five  letters,  represent- 
ing that  many  classes  of  sounds  : 


Vowels 

Labials. 

Gutturals. 

Dentals,  &c. 

A 

B 

C 

D 

E 

F 

G 

H 

I 

M 

K 

L 

N 

0 

P 

Q 

EST 

u 

YW 

X 

Y 

Z 

A  mere  glance  at  this  scheme  will  show  that  the  lettei-a 
of  the  alphabet  were  not  placed  fortuitously  in  their  posi- 
tion ;  that  the  vowels  came  in  the  order  of  their  vocal  de- 
velopment ;  in  a  word,  that  the  entire  alphabet  is  a  fivefold 
orderly  repetition  of  the  first  four  letters,  ABCD  which  in 
themselves  sum  up  the  entire  range  of  sounds,  and  make 
the  key  notes  to  all  the  dialectic  transmutations  of  lettei-s 
to  which  I  have  already  drawn  attention  more  than  once 
before.  These  transmutations  occur  regularly  only  within 
the  respective  columns  of  this  scheme.  For  instance,  B  is 
exchanged  for  F,  M,  P,  or  V,  but  never  for  C,  G,  K,  Q,  or 
X ;  nor  for  D,  H,  N,  R,  S,  T,  or  Z.  In  cases  where  a  let- 
ter of  one  column  seems  to  be  transmuted  into  a  letter  of 
another  column,  as  in  the  often-quoted  instances  of  William 
for  Gulielmus, — German  welch  for  old  English  quilk, — 
French  garenne  for  Eugli.sh  warren,  &c.,a  loss  of  some  letter 
must  always  be  supposed,  or  the  substitution  of  one  of  the 
vowels  for  one  of  the  letters.  In  the  three  instances  just 
quoted  the  initial  g  is  lost : — thus  g-william  for  g-uHelm, 
q- welch  for  q-uilk,  g- warren  for  g-(b)arenne. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  fourth  column  are  collected  dentals, 
Unguals,  sibilants,  a  nasal  and  an  aspirate,  but  all  these 
are  proved  to  be  transmutable  by  the  simple  method  of 
comparing  a  dozen  or  two  of  allied  dialects.  D  and  T  ai-e 
in  fact  the  same  letter;  L  and  H  are  universally  inter- 
changeable ;  S  and  Z  are  identical ;  N  is  the  nasal  of  D,  as 
M  is  of  B ;  and  H  is  in  fact  a  sibilant  in  its  simplest  form, 
as  such  words  as  aks  and  sel  show. 

Here  I  must  leave  this  fascinating  subject,  hardly  having 
taken  the  first  step  across  its  threshold,  but  only  thrown 
open  the  door  to  exhibit  the  immensity  and  magnificence 
of  its  interior. 


LECTURE  X. 

THE    FOUR   TYPES    OF    RELIGIOUS    WORSHIP. 

If  the  views  be  correct  which  I  have  very  imperfectly 
expressed  in  the  previous  lectures  of  this  course,  we  are 
now  prepared  to  enter  upon  the  last  and  most  important 
and  most  interesting  subject  connected  with  the  early 
history  of  man — the  origin  of  its  mythologies. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  keep  always  in  view  the  funda- 
mental distinction  between  religion  and  worship.  Religion 
is  the  soul  of  worship.  Worship  is  the  body,  the  phe- 
nomenal form  of  religion.  The  religious  life  of  man  con- 
sists of  a  combination  of  three  of  his  elemental  forces, — 
Admiration,  Love,  and  Fear — having  for  their  object  of 
activity  the  invisible  or  superhuman  world. 

As  there  are  four  great  types  of  organic  animal  life, 
represented  by  the  Articulate,  Radiate,  Mollusc,  and  Ver- 
tebrate kingdoms, — so  there  are  four  great  types  of  this 
religious  life,  embodied  in  the  Worship  of  the  dead,  the 
Worship  of  the  powers  of  nature,  the  Worship  of  God  in 
heaven,  arid  the  Worship  of  the  universe. 

Under  these  four  heads  all  human  conceptions  of  the 
divine  as  worshipful  can  be  collected.  In  one  sense  they 
are  four  successive  stages  in  the  order  of  the  development 
of  the  human  intelligence  governing  the  exercise  of  the 
instinct  of  worship.  They  are  not  only  philosophically 
consecutive  in  the  order  of  nature,  but  to  a  certain  extent 
also  historically  consecutive  in  the  order  of  time.  They 
have  co-existed  in  some  ages,  and  been  combined  and  in- 
termixed in  some  countries,  just  as  in  the  case  of  the  four 
types  of  animal  hfe.  But  they  have  virtually  followed 
each  other  in  ruHng  the  world,   just  as  in  the  succession 


254  THE    FOUR    TYPES    OF  [lECT. 

of  geological  ages   Radiates  had  their  maximum  develop- 
ment first,  Molluscs  next,  and  Vertebrates  last  of  all. 

For  it  will  not  do  to  affirm — drawing  sharp  lines  of 
distinction — that  in  the  ages  of  maD''s  first  appearance 
on  the  planet  there  was  no  other  worship  than  that  of 
their  dead  parents,  or  of  the  manes  of  their  heroes  ;  that 
everywhere  there  followed  Fetichism  or  the  worship  of 
the  powers  of  nature ;  that  then  in  later  times  all  nations 
attained  to  the  higher  worship  of  some  Fate,  or  Jove,  or 
God  of  Heaven ;  and  that  finally,  in  these  last  times,  a 
genuine  Pantheism  has  grown  universal.  Far  from  it. 
Complex  enough  have  been  the  '^.ombinations  of  religious 
ideas  as  far  back  in  history  as  we  can  see.  Varieties  of 
the  individual,  co-working  with  varieties  of  race  and  with 
the  various  stages  and  kinds  of  civilization,  have  kept  not 
only  alive  but  in  full  vigour  the  worships  of  the  past  side 
by  side  with  one  another,  and  with  the  higher  worships  of 
the  present  day,  developing  in  fact  their  four  great  types 
in  four  parallel  lines ,  just  as  in  the  growth  of  the  whole 
animal  kingdom  we  notice  that  Radiates  and  Articulates 
lived  together  in  the  oldest  sedimentary  rocks,  and  are 
represented  still  in  the  multiform  fauna  of  to-day  ;  while 
Molluscs  and  Vertebrates,  from  the  time  when  these  ap- 
peared, have  been  mixed  in  with  them  through  all  the 
higher  and  later  sediments. 

All  that  we  can  affirm  therefore  is  this ; — that  the 
earliest  times  of  mankind  seemed  to  be  stamped  with  the 
forms  of  ancestral  worship  chiefly,  some  of  which  have 
lasted  to  the  present  moment; — fetichism  of  all  kinds — 
stone  worships,  mountain  worships,  water  worships,  firt, 
air  and  sky  worships,  Sab^ism,  Mithraism,  Indraism 
and  the  astrological  systems  of  the  ancients  flourished 
chiefly  in  a  second  age,  but  have  also  lasted  to  our  day  ; 
— then  the  cultivation  of  the  T((ste  by  idolatry  and  of  the 
Sentiments  by  mysticism  produced  at  the  beginnings  of 
historic  times  grand,  dominating,  ceremonial  worships  of 
a  god  supreme,  Jove  and  Jehovahism,  culminating  in 
Christianity  ;  and  that,  finally,  the  culture  of  the  Intellect 
has  developed  Pantheism. 

When  circumstances  favour  their  growth  all  these  types 
are  developed  in  a  single  nation,  in  a  single  individual; 
but  they  come  to  consciousness  in  this   one  order  only. 


X.]  EBLiaiOUS    WORSHIP.  255 

Their  consecutive  development  has  been  realized  in  all 
the  cultivated  portions  of  the  great  historic  section  of  the 
race.  Pantheism  has  expressed  itself  in  the  Hindu  Vedas 
and  in  the  Christian  writings ;  by  Plotinus  the  Pagan  and 
by  Spinoza  the  Christian ;  by  Swedenborg  in  one  charac- 
teristic form  and  by  Hegel  in  another.  On  the  one  hand, 
children  and  savages  cannot  be  Pantheists.  On  the  other 
hand,  philosophers  like  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson_and  Blanco 
White,  historians  like  Buckle,  naturalists  like  Von  Baer 
were  equally  impossible  in  the  Stone  period.  There  is  a 
time  for  everything  iinder  the  sun.  Ages  may  overlap. 
One  nation  may  outstrip  another  in  its  religious  develop- 
ment. One  race  may  hurry  forward  from  Fetichism  to 
Pantheism  with  greater  intellectual  vivacity  than  another ; 
but  he  who  aspires  to  be  the  historian  of  mythologies  must 
learn  to  recogrnize  or  have  the  crenius  to  construct  out  of 
the  apparent  confusion  which  has  thence  ensued  some 
wide,  consistent,  ever- working  law  of  growth,  some  com- 
prehensive system  of  religious  development  residing  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  common  mind  of  man. 

If  now  there  be  four  types  of  religion,  there  are  also  but 
four  modes  of  worship.  I  use  the  word  here  in  a  more 
precise  and  restricted  sense.  The  religious  sentiments  of 
man,  intelligently  directing  themselves  towards  any  one  of 
the  four  great  objects  of  adoration,  embody  themselves  in 
four  forms  of  worship.  In  other  words,  all  the  religions  of 
the  ages  have  become  incarnate  with  four  members : 
Prayer,  Praise,  Offering,  and  Sacrifice.  They  correspond  to 
the  instincts  of  religious  Fear,  religious  Love,  religious 
Policy,  and  religious  Conscience  or  the  sense  of  justice. 
And  they  have  filled  the  world  for  ages  upon  ages  with 
cries,  and  songs,  and  gifts,  and  altar-smoke. 

As  worship  is  a  body  for  the  spirit  of  religion,  so  cere- 
monial is  the  dress  which  these  four  kinds  of  worship 
wear.  Ceremonials  are  merely  special  shapes  and  combin- 
ations of  prayer,  praise,  offering,  and  sacrifice,  devised  by 
the  clerical  imagination,  localized  by  circumstances,  and 
sanctified  by  long  tradition. 

In  common  parlance  we  speak  of  ceremonials  as  religions ; 
and  we  class  men  rudely  by  them.  There  could  not  be  a 
more  unphilosophical  mistake.  An  ethnologist  might  as 
well    attempt    to    classify   the   races    of  mankind    by  the 


256  THE    POUR    TYPES    OP  [lECT. 

fashions  of  their  clothes.  No  two  kinds  of  ceremonial,  for 
example,  could  be  more  unlike  than  that  of  the  Romish 
Church  on  the  one  side,  and  that  of  the  Quakers,  Puritans, 
Methodists,  or  Moravians  on  the  other.  And  yet  if  we  ana- 
lyze the  Papist  and  the  Protestant  with  equal  scrupulosity 
and  skill,  we  shall  obtain  what  chemists  call  '  allotropic 
elements '  in  both.  What  is  Protestantism  but  melted 
sulphur  dropped  into  cold  water  ?  or,  if  the  amour  jpwjpre 
of  my  audience  demand  another  simile,  red  phosphorus, 
innoxious  to  the  manufacturers  ?  In  the  Romish  commu- 
nion you  have  Calvinist  and  Arminian,  Jansenist  and 
Jesuit,  Rationalist  and  Mystic,  just  the  same  and  just  as 
eager  as  in  the  Protestant  communions.  There  is  not  a 
spiritual  distinction  with  which  intercourse  and  literature 
have  made  us  familiar  that  we  cannot  discover  (of  course, 
Avith  intellectual  modifications  of  expression,  due  to  various 
culture  )  in  all  the  religions  of  the  modern  world. 

Nor  is  the  rule  confined  to  them.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  ancient  mythologies.  Under  a  ceremonial  Joseph's 
coat  of  many  colours  they  present  a  grand  simplicity 
of  essential  symbolism.  But  the  fourfold  distinction  of 
religious  type  remains  ;  and  combinations  of  the  four  modes 
of  worship  in  each  type  are  there.  The  mythologist  must 
not  allow  himself  to  be  cheated  by  the  variety  of  cere- 
monial details.  The  confusion  of  priesthoods,  and  mysteries, 
and  creeds,  and  fables,  is  only  in  appearance  and  in  words, 
not  in  reality — only  in  the  visible  organizations  and  local 
establishments  of  the  worshippers,  not  at  all  in  the  funda- 
mental ideas  that  inspired  and  regulated  their  worships. 
Let  us  look  at  these — 

I.  The  worship  of  the  dead. 

I  have  said  so  much  on  this  subject  in  previous  lectures, 
that  nothing  remains  but  to  place  it  in  its  true  relationship 
of  precedency  to  the  other  forms  of  religious  thought  and 
conduct. 

If  it  were  necessary  to  add  anything  to  the  testimony 
which  the  Egyptian  tombs  of  the  first  six  dynasties  afford 
to  the  extreme  antiquity  of  ancestral  worship  among  the 
more  civilized  nations  at  the  dawn  of  history,  we  would 
find  such  additions  in  the  mention  of  it  in  the  hymns  of 
the  Rig  Veda,  the  oldest  literature  of  southern  Asia.  The 
laws  of  Menu  speak  of  it  as  the  most  ancient  religion  of 


I 


X.]  RELIGIOUS    WORSHIP.  257 

mankind.  Long  after  Brahmanisiii  had  substituted  for  tlie 
idea  of  immortality  the  doctrine  of  jMetempsychosis^  the 
custom  of  the  sraddha  or  funereal  repast  continued  to 
be  kept ;  rice,  milk,  roots,  fruit,  were  furnished  regularly 
to  the  departed  soul.  The  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  in 
fact  all  branches  of  the  Aryan  race,  sacrificed  periodically 
at  the  tomb. 

So  universal  were  these  rites  that  De  Coulanges  thinks 
himself  justified  in  basing  upon  them  his  theory  of  the 
Family  Law  of  the  ancients.  The  stranger  was  excluded. 
The  dead  accepted  service  and  homage  only  from  his  chil- 
dren and  descendants  in  direct  succession.  '  The  dead,* 
says  Lucian,  '  who  has  left  no  son  receives  no  ofierings, 
and  is  exposed  to  a  perpetual  famine.'  So  long  as  the 
family  supplied  their  head  with  what  he  needed  in  the 
other  world,  so  long  he  was  its  god  and  benefactor.  The 
living  needed  the  dead,  the  dead  the  li\ang,  equally.  This 
mutual  tie  produced  the  solidarity  of  the  family,  the  clan, 
the  tribe. 

But  from  this  service  women  were  excluded.  The 
hearth  became  an  altar;  the  son  became  a  priest.  The 
daughter  was  always  a  sarvant — first  to  her  father,  then  to 
her  brother,  then  to  her  husband ;  once  married,  she 
passed  into  another  family  ;  marriage  was  a  second  birth — 
the  wife  was  the  daughter  of  her  husband.  If  the  dead 
had  only  daughters  he  lost  his  immortality,  became  a 
larva,  or  returned  to  earth  in  another  body  to  obtain 
another  family.  '  The  extinction  of  a  family  says  the 
Baghavatgita  '  causes  the  ruin  of  the  religion  of  that 
family.'  '  No  man  '  says  a  Greek  writer  ^  knowing  that  he 
must  die  can  care  so  little  for  himself  as  to  be  willing  to 
leave  his  family  without  descendants,  for  then  no  one  can 
worship  him.'  '  If  a  man  die  without  sons '  says  the 
Mosaic  law  '  let  his  brother  marry  his  widow  and  procure 
him  children.'  '  By  children  '  says  the  law  of  Menu  '  a 
man  acquits  his  debt  towards  his  ancestors  and  secures  his 
own  immortality.'  The  Hindu  who  had  no  son  married 
ofi'his  daughter  on  the  condition,  that  her  first  son  should 
be  considered  as  his  own. 

This  was  the  origin  of  the  custom  of  adoption  at  a  later 
period.  The  hereditary  rights  of  property  were  first  estab- 
lished  entirely  in  the   interest  of  this   overwhelming  re- 


258  THE    FOUR   TYPES    OF  [lECT, 

ligious  consideration  ;  property  could  proteci  the  hearth, 
the  tomb,  the  fuiiei'al  rites,  the  immortalitv.  '  TJolioion 
prescribes '  says  Cicero  '  that  the  possessions  and  the 
worship  of  each  family  should  be  inseparable,  and  that  the 
care  of  the  sacrifices  should  always  devolve  upon  him  to 
whom  the  inheritance  belongs/  The  right  of  primogeni- 
ture in  England  is  maintained  by  precisely  analogous  con- 
siderations. The  Eonian  daughter  could  inherit  nothing 
from  her  father.  The  Greek  laws  forbade  the  daughter  to 
inherit  anything.  The  common  law  derived  from  Rome 
considers  the  daughter  always  as  a  minor. 

The  adoption  of  a  son,  also,  by  another  man  than  his 
father  removed  him  entirely  from  his  own  family  and 
passed  him  irrecoverably  over  to  another,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
raan'ied  daughter.  When  the  demagogue  Claudius  curried 
favour  with  the  populace  by  causing  himself  to  be  adopted 
by  a  plebeian  Cicero  thundered  at  him  the  tremendous 
rebuke  '  Why  dost  thou  expose,  by  thine  own  fault,  the 
religion  of  the  Claudian  clan  (gens)  to  become  extinct !' 
Athens  was  but  a  confederation  of  families  ;  a  number  of 
families  formed  a  (pparpLa,  a  number  of  phratrise  a  tribe,  and 
the  tribes  combined  composed  the  city.  The  religion 
of  the  family  retained  its  integrity  long  afte;r  the  religion 
of  the  city  was  formulated  in  a  more  splendid  shape.  The 
fathers  of  the  families  became  the  dii  Gentiles ;  the  city  had 
its  eponym  deities. 

So  much  for  the  classic  literature  of  the  subject.  Let  us 
turn  back  now  to  far  more  ancient  days,  beyond  the  dawn 
of  written  histoiy.  Let  us  study  ancestor  worship  in  its 
first  beginnings,  preceding  all  those  notions  of  religious 
sentiment  and  worship  with  which  the  monuments  of  the 
great  past  have  made  us  so  familiar. 

That  it  did  actually  precede  all  other  kinds  of  religion 
seems  indubitably  settled  by  the  arcligeological  discoveries 
of  the  last  few  years.  If  the  picture  of  the  head  of  an 
elephant  slightly  engraved  upon  a  blade  of  ivory,  broken 
into  five  pieces,  discovered  by  Dr  Falconer  in  company 
with  MM.  Lartet  and  de  Verneuil  when  they  visited 
together  the  excavations  making  at  the  station  of  La 
Madeleine,  Commune  of  Turzac,  in  the  valley  of  the  Yezere 
at  the  foot  of  the  chalk  cliffs  of  Perigord  in  1864  proves 
that  the  aborigines  of  that  part  of  France  were  acquainted 


X.]  RELIGIOUS   WORSHIP.  259 

with  the  animal  in  its  living  state,  although  no  elephants 
now  live  in  Europe ;  —  if  the  bunch  of  lines  descending 
beneath  the  throat  be  suflScient  evidence  that  this  elephant 
which  lived  among  them  was  no  other  than  the  long- 
haired Mammoth,  now  entirely  extinct,  the  carcases  of 
which  however  are  still  preserved  in  the  eternal  ice  banks 
of  the  Siberian  coast  enveloped  in  the  shaggy  mantles 
characteristic  of  the  species ;  * — if  another  engraving  of 
the  head  of  a  true  elephant  (that  is,  with  almost  vertical  cra- 
nium) done  upon  a  fragment  of  reindeer  bone,  found  by  M. 
de  Vibraye  at  Laugerie-Basse,  a  station  lower  down  the 
valley,  proves  in  like  manner  that  the  elephant  as  well  as 
the  Mammoth  lived  in  France  at  that  remote  epoch,  spe- 
cifically diflPering  by  its  narrow  oblong  ears  set  forward 
close  to  the  eyef  from  both  the  elephant  of  Africa  and  the 
elephant  of  Asia  as  we  know  them  now ; — if  the  picture  of 
a  combat  of  reindeers  (in  which  the  attitude  of  the  con- 
queror is  described  as  of  surprising  truth)  upon  a  plate  of 
shist,  with  representations  of  a  stag  and  doe,  a  horse,  an 
ox,  an  otter,  and  a  beaver,  upon  other  materials,  all  found 
together  by  M.  de  Vibraye  in  the  diggings  at  Dordogne 
and  Charente,J   give  us  all  the  proof  we   should   require 

•  This  peculiarity  was  verified  by  Mr  Adams,  in  1799,  at  the  mouth  of 
the  River  Lina.  Troyon,  p.  74.  Comptes  rendus  de  I'Academie  des 
Sciences,  Ixi.  p.  311. 

f  Comptes  rendus  I'Acad.  des  Sciences,  Ixi ,  21  Aoiit,  1865.  The  eye 
itself  is  represented  closed  by  a  finely-cut  oblique  line  in  its  normal  po- 
sition. The  tusks  are  represented,  and  the  trunk,  rather  thin,  has  a 
length  about  one  and  a  half  that  of  the  head.  Were  these  figures  made 
under  the  influence  of  a  traditional  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the 
animals  in  a  distant  part  of  the  world,  chimerical  characteristics  would  be 
apparent,  whereas  a  scrupulous  exactness  of  details  has  been  observed, 
only  to  be  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  that  the  model  was  before 
the  artist's  eyes.  And,  of  course,  all  doubt  is  set  aside  by  the  fact  of  the 
existence  of  the  bones  of  these  animals  found  iu  great  numbers.  Troyon, 
p.  75. 

X  Mortillet,  Materiaux,  li^^e  Annee,  p.  109.  Troyon  I'homiiie  fossile, 
p.  73.  I  have  myself  examined  a  large  number  of  these  relics  (iu 
cast)  in  the  cabinet  of  my  friend  Professor  Desor,  and  can  vouch  for  the 
sober  truthfulness  of  the  followhig  description  of  them  by  Dr  Broca; — 
'One  can  hardly  conceive  of  men,  deprived  of  the  use  of  metal,  able  to 
fabricate  in  bone,  in  ivory,  in  horn,  an  infinite  variety  of  tools,  extremely 
delicate  ;  to  chisel  them  into  elegant  forms,  and  represent  by  designs 
graven  on  the  handles  of  their  instruments,  figures  of  various  animals ; 
figures  which  are  distinguished  by  an  exactitude  and  artistic  ability  truly 
remarkable.     To    find,  in   equal  measure,  the   art   sentimenr   we   must 


260 


THE    POUR    TYPES    OF 


[lbct. 


Fig.  14.     Handle  of  a  Dagger,  made  of  reindeer  horn,  and  ropruscnting 
a  Falling  Deer,  found  at  Langerie  Basse,  Dordogne,  France,  1863. 


X.]  RKLIGIOUS    WORSHIP.  201 

• 

apart  from  the  evidence  afforded  by  the  bones  of  the 
animals  themselves  fossilized  in  the  same  localities)  that 
they  were  the  contemporaries,  the  prey,  and  no  doubt' 
the  dread  of  the  men  who  sketched  their  forms  ; — if,  in  a 
word,  such  relics  of  rude  skill  serve  well  instead  of  books 
to  inform  us  under  what  conditions  the  early  races  of  man- 
kind protracted  their  material  existence,  why  should  we 
not  expect  to  get  equally  significant  hints  respecting  their 
intellectual  and  spiritual  state  ? 

The  question  is  answered  for  us  by  the  funerary  grotto  of 
Aiirignac   in  the  south  of  France. 

A  workman  making  a  terrace  for  a  vineyard,  in  1852, 
dug  into  a  talus  of  loose  earth  piled  against  the  foot  of  a 
limestone  bluff,  and  exposed  to  day  a  large  stone  slab  set 
upright  against  a  small  arched  opening  penetrating  but  a 
short  distance  into  the  rock.  Seventeen  human  skeletons^ 
some  mammalian  teeth,  and  eighteen  little  discs  of  sea- 
shell  pierced  as  if  for  wearing  round  the  neck,  were  super- 
posed upon  each  other  in  the  little  cave.  The  mayor  of 
the  canton  was  a  good  Christian  but  a  bad  ethnologist ; 
and  so  he  gave  orders  to  have  the  skeletons  buried  de- 
cently, before  any  one  had  a  chance  to  examine  them 
anatomically.  Philanthropic,  but  rather  stupid  that;  con- 
sidering that  these  were  the  immortal  relics  of  the  Adams 
and  Eves  of  Languedoc :  and  it  was  a  chance,  perhaps 
never  to  turn  up  again,  for  seeing  if  the  story  of  an  Eden 
could  be  proved  or  no.  The  adventure  created  no  great 
excitement,  and  even  the  new  burying-place  of  these  ante- 
diluvian remains  was  afterwards  forgotten. 

descend  innumerable  centuries  to  the  best  days  of  Greece.  They  form  a 
contrast  with  the  gross  tracery  of  Celtic  monuments  so  absolute  that, 
perhaps, — it  has  been  suggested — they  have  been  the  handiwork  of 
modern  refugees  in  the  caves  of  the  old  troglodytes.  But  who  in  Europe, 
since  Quaternary  times,  coidd  design  on  reindeer  bone  or  horn,  the  figure 
of  an  elephant  different  from  all  the  kinds  now  living?  This  interesting 
race  led  a  peaceable  existence.  A  cranium  found  in  the  grotto  of  Brn- 
niquel  is  distinguished  by  purity  of  form,  softness  of  contours,  slight  pro- 
jection of  its  apophyses,  and  shallowness  of  muscular  impressions, — 
feat  ures  incompatible  with  the  violent  manners  of  a  savage  race.'  lu  order 
to  assure  the  reader  that  there  can  be  no  exaggeration  in  the  eulogies  be- 
stowed upon  these  wonderful  works  of  art.  1  have  drawn  the  figure  of  a 
fallinu:  reindeer,  which  serves  for  the  handle  of  a  horn  dagger,  and  he  may 
judge  lor  hinseir  of  the  artistic  genius  which  these  inhabitants  of  Gaul,  of 
the  reindeer  age,  displayed.      See  fig.  14. 


262  THE    FOUR   TYPES   OF  [lBCT. 

In  1860  M.  Lartet,  unable  to  recover  the  bodies,  com- 
menced his  researches  of  the  cave  itself.  After  the  stuff 
from  the  cliffs  which  had  concealed  the  mouth  of  the 
cave  had  been  removed,  there  remained  a  terrace  standintj- 
about  forty  feet  above  the  bed  of  the  valley  and  level  with 
the  floor  of  the  grotto.  The  soil  of  this  terrace  and  the 
earthy  floor  of  the  grotto  formed  one  continuous  deposit, 
of  variable  thickness,  but  everywhere  yielding  relics  of  an 
ancient  age, — hearthstones,  charred  wood  and  beds  of 
cinders,  pottery,  flint  tools  and  arrow-heads,  and  burned 
and  fractured  bones  of  animals.  But  mark  this  difference  ! 
All  the  traces  of  fire,  all  the  marks  of  good-table  fellow- 
ship, all  the  proofs  of  industry,  were  outside,  not  inside 
the  grotto — in  the  soil  of  the  terrace,  not  in  the  floor-earth 
of  the  cave.  On  the  other  hand,  the  human  skeletons, 
the  disjointed  necklaces,  were  found  within  the  grotto, 
and  nothing  of  that  sort  occurred  outside  of  it. 

No  stalactites  were  visible  in  this  cave,  nor  the  usual 
stalagmite  covering  to  the  floor;  no  traces  of  the  usual 
bone-mud  brought  by  water  and  enveloping  the  remains 
as  in  other  ossuary  caverns.  The  earthy  deposit  seemed 
a  bed  spread  by  the  hands  of  man,  on  which  to  lay  the 
bodies  found  upon  it.  It  was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
a  cave  of  Machpelah,  an  aboriginal  mausoleum. 

Outside  the  cave  the  friends  of  the  departed  had  held 
their  funereal  feasts ;  but  what  were  their  delicacies  ? 
A-nimals  no  longer  in  existence, — the  great  cave-beai',  the 
mammoth,  the  rhinoceros,  the  great  horned  Irish  elk,  and 
the  cave-lion,  attesting  the  immense  antiquity  of  the  event. 
The  aurochs — now  almost  extinct — and  the  reindeer  were 
also  there.  To  these  were  added  entremets  of  smaller  crea- 
tures which  have  escaped  extinction  and  continue  to  haunt 
our  modern  woods  and  fields :  the  common  bear,  the 
badger,  polecat,  wild-cat,  wolf  and  fox,  the  horse  and  ass  (?), 
the  wild  boar,  common  stag  and  roe  buck.*  All  the 
bones  which  contained  marrow  were  found  broken  or  split 
lengthwise  with  a  knife.  Hyenas^  bones  were  also  found ; 
and  these  foul  creatures  must  have  stolen  in  by  night  to 
iTtiaw  the  relics  of  the  feast,  for  the  transverse  marks  left 
b}'  their  teeth  occurred  on  mau}^  of  the  surfaces,  and  their 
dung  was  on  the  spot. 

*  One  bono  of  a  liare  was  also  t'oiiiid. 


l]  RELIGIOUS    WuRSHiP.  263 

Inside  the  cave  were  also  found  portions  of  animal 
skeletons  so  articulated  that  it  was  evident  the  flesh  had 
been  upon  them  when  they  were  deposited.  Outside,  the 
remains  of  rumiuauts  predominated,  especially  of  reindeer 
and  of  aurochs.  Inside,  those  of  carnivorous  beasts  pre- 
dominated, especially  the  fox.  Some  species  were  only 
represented  by  their  teeth. 

A  few  more  details,  and  we  will  be  prepared  to  draw 
conclusions. 

A  hundred  lamellae  of  flint,  some  flakes  or  chips  of  flint, 
a  kind  of  hammer,  and  some  nuclei  or  matrix-blocks,  gave 
positive  indications  that  the  manufacture  of  tools  and 
weapons  was  carried  on  upon  the  spot ;  and,  therefore 
that  the  visit  of  man  to  the  grotto  was  not  a  single  and 
incidental  event.  The  bones  and  horns  of  the  reindeer 
had  been  utilized  for  divers  instruments,  such  as  awls  or 
bodkins,  plain  (unbarbed)  arrow-heads,  and  whetstones  in 
the  shape  of  polished  blades. 

The  earthy  deposit  inside  the  grotto  contained  with  the 
human  skeletons  teeth  of  the  cave-lion  and  wild  boar,  and 
bones  of  the  cave-bear,  wolf,  fox,  horse,  aurochs,  reindeer, 
and  other  mammifers,  neither  broken,  gnawed,  nor  bm-ned. 

The  picture  of  a  bird's  head  was  sculptured  on  the  eye- 
tooth  of  a  bear.  A  lamella  of  flint  perfectly  fresh  and 
unused  lay  near  it.  The  earth  that  had  been  thrown  out 
of  the  grotto  in  a  heap  upon  the  terrace  at  the  time 
when  the  bodies  were  discovered  was  carefully  searched, 
and  furnished  a  beautiful  specimen  of  worked  reindeer- 
horn,  and  about  a  hundred  worked  flints;  many  of  them 
however  so  exceedingly  minute  that  it  seems  impossible 
to  imagine  them  of  any  practical  utility  to  those  who  made 
them  and  placed  them  with  the  dead.  These  were  pro- 
bably miniature  weapons,  such  as  those  small  bronze 
swords  and  spears,  an  inch  or  two  in  length,  which  are 
often  found  in  the  cinerary  urns  of  the  north  and  south 
of  Europe. 

In  the  same  heap  of  dirt  coming  from  the  grotto 
were  found,  naturally  enough,  other  human  bones  and  bones 
of  animals,  none  of  which  were  either  gnawed  or  broken ; 
and  several  fragments  of  pottery  more  or  less  rudely 
made  with  the  hand  ;  the  only  instance  on  record  yet 
in  which  this  art  has  shown  itself  to  be  of  an  antiquity 


264  THE    FOUR    TYPES    OP  [l-ECT. 

commensurate  with  that  of  the  extinct  cave-bear.  In  all 
other  cases  where  remains  of  pottery  have  been  dis- 
covered, it  has  been  in  ossuary  cave-deposits  of  the  latest 
Stone  age,  i.  e.  (see  page  6G)  contemporary  with  the  Bos 
primigenius  (Urus),  long  after  the  total  extinction  of  the 
great  cave-bear  and  large  pachyderms,  and  the  retire- 
ment of  the  reindeer  to  the  polai"  regions.  We  must 
keep  ill  mind  however  here  that  these  other  ossuary 
deposits  were  not  composed,  as  in  this  case,  of  dry  earth 
shovelled  by  man's  hand  ;  but  muddy  loams  distributed 
by  water ;  and  that  in  such  aqueous  deposits  unburned  clay 
potsherds  could  have  stood  but  little  chance  of  preserva- 
tion. 

What  now  are  our  conclusions  ?  We  have  here  before 
us  a  terrace  and  a  cave,  divided  by  a  door  of  stone.  On 
the  terrace  traces  of  active  life,  a  workshop  and  a  table, 
so  to  speak.  In  the  cave  no  trace  of  life,  dead  bodies 
only,  carefully  shut  in  from  the  assaults  of  weather  and 
wild  beasts.  The  dead  were  buried  then,  not  burned. 
But  more, — arms,  ornaments,  food,  vessels,  holding  per- 
fumes perhaps  or  fruits  or  cakes,  were  buried  then  (as  in 
so  many  parts  of  the  world  is  still  the  custom  to  this  day) 
together  with  the  dead. 

Those  savages  believed  in  immortality  !  What  was  th'.' 
age  they  lived  in  ?  The  most  remote  of  which  we  have 
as  yet  any  certain  information  of  the  existence  of  mankind 
—unless  the  reported  discoveries  of  human  fossils  in  the 
tertiary  rocks  be  true — the  first  of  the  four  established 
epochs  of  the  great  Stone  age,  the  epoch  of  the  cave- 
bear,  the  antique  elephant  and  first  rhinoceros ;  for  the 
bones  of  this  gigantic  kind  of  bear  were  found  not  only 
upon  the  terrace  but  inside  the  cave. 

These  funereal  fires,  these  offerings  in  the  tomb,  this 
workshop  of  the  travelling  equipages  of  their  dead  before 
its  door,  are  so  many  speaking  traditions  of  an  ancient,  a 
most  ancient,  a  first  and  altogether  aboriginal  ivorship  of 
the  manes  of  the  dead. 

The  strangest  part  of  this  strange  story  is,  that  when 
we  turn  to  look  at  other  funerary  grottoes,  for  there  are 
others,  caves  formed  by  nature  and  used  foi'  tombs  by  man, 
we  see,  first,  that  they  arc  of  a  much  later  os:e,  vz.  the 
fourth  epoch  of  the  age  of  Stone,    that  characterized  by  the 


\-.]  RKLIGIOUS   WOKSHIP.  265 

predominance  of  the  urus  bones  and  domesticated  animals ; 
and  secondly,  we  notice  in  them  no  traces  of  funereal 
repasts  ;  at  least  none  such  have  been  reported  or  de- 
scribed.* 

Was  the  worship  of  the  dead  abandoned,  or  forgotten, 
or  exchanged  for  some  newer  form  of  religious  ceremony 
during  this  interval  ?  That  is  hardly  a  possible  suppo- 
sition ;  for,  as  I  have  shown  in  previous  lectures,  Egyptian 
history  opens  under  the  auspices  of  this  religious  venera- 
tion for  the  dead  ;  and  the  Druid  dolmens,  cromlechs  and 
other  structures,  now  considered  as  belonging  to  the  lacus- 
trine or  fourth  epoch  of  the  age  of  Stone,  are  all  of  them 
closely  related  to  views  and  ceremonies  which  have  the 
same  religion  for  a  starting-point.  The  cave  of  Auriguao 
stands  as  a  fact  so  much  alone  in  our  present  knowledge 
of  those  distant  ages  that  it  would  be  extremely  hazard- 
ous to  build  any  theory  upon  it  involving  comparative 
questions.  It  is  very  curious  however  to  observe  how 
the  early  sculpture  also  seems  to  have  disappeared ;  for  on 
the  Druid  monuments,  and  even  on  the  bronze  utensils 
and  armour  of  more  civilized  times — those  of  the  lacustrine 
epoch — we  find  no  pictures  of  animated  nature  ;  only 
circular  and  cross-bar  patterns  of  a  mathematical  character, 
(>r  fanciful  arabesque  designs.  If  Troyon  be  correct  in 
ascribing  this  remarkable  abstention  to  religious  prejudices, 
such  as  those  which  Moses  afterwards  established  among 
the  Jews,  and  Mahomet  among  his  followers, — then  he 
may  be  equally  correct  in  assigning  to  the  deluge  a  date 
falling  between  the  third  and  fourth  epochs  of  the  age  of 
Stone  :  that  is,  following  the  disappearance  of  the  reindeer 
and  previous  to  the  appearance  of  the  present  races  of 
domesticated  animals  and  plants  on  European  soil, — to  a 
deluge  which  was  connected  with  slow  changes  of  sea- 
level,  and  the  melting  of  continental  glaciers  ;  to  a  deluge 
which  destroyed,  not  all  indeed,  but  a  large  part  of  the 
previous  population,  and  allowed  of  a  fresh  importation 
from  the  Orient  brinofino-  with  them  an  advance  in  arts 
and    arms,   domesticated    animals,   the    serial    grains    and 

•  Since  this  ^as  written.  Mr  D  monthas  found  a  somewhat  similar  in- 
staiK^e  in  Belgium. 


266  THK    FOUR    TYPES    OF  [lECT. 

orcliard  trees ;  and  together  with  this  new  social  Hfe,  a 
more  complicated  set  of  religious  ideas,  among  which  the 
pure  and  simple  earlier  worship  of  the  dead  would  occupy 
a  subordinate  and    perhaps  an  insignificant  position. 

But  it  is  in  vain  for  us  to  attempt  in  this  advanced  age 
either  a  defence  or  a  precise  definition  of  the  extravagant 
story  of  the  deluge  transmitted  to  us  by  the  Hebrew 
scriptures.  M.  Troyon's  strong  religious  convictions 
have  prevented  him  from  saying  in  so  many  words 
that  the  deluge  which  he  proposes  to  place  between 
the  third  and  fourth  Stone  age  was  an  almost  insensible 
variation  of  the  sea-level,  due  to  the  retreat  of  the  glacial 
fields ;  but  he  leaves  that  inference  to  be  drawn  by  his 
readers.  Such,  however,  would  be  no  Noachian  deluge. 
It  would  be  quite  another  thing  to  ascribe  the  introduction 
of  new  ideas  simply  to  an  amelioration  of  the  post-glacial 
climates  and  soils  of  Europe,  permitting  an  influx  of  an 
advancing  population  among  whom  the  primitive  simplicity 
of  ancestral  worship  had  become  confused  and  concealed 
by  all  those  intellectual  speculations  and  social  customs 
which  Professor  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  of  Strasbourg,  has 
traced  backward  in  the  pages  of  his  admirable  book,  '  La 
Cite  Aiitiqtie.'  * 

Whether  this  new  population  came  from  Asia  originally 
as  the  compai'ative  philologists  seem  to  agree  in  believing, 
or  whether  it  was  only  reflected  from  the  coasts  of  Asia 
Minor  and  Syria  like  a  wave  originating  in  the  west  or 
south,  a  view  defended  by  Brugsch  in  his  discussion  of 
the  seat  of  the  Tahrau  race  and  others  affiliated  with  it 
in  the  times  of  Ramses  II.  1400  B.c.f  ;  or  lastly,  whethci- 
it  came  direct  from  the  great  centre  of  Berber  or  Numidiau 
life,  by  Malta,  Sicily  and  Spain,  as  Desor  and  other  ex- 
plorers of  the  Dolmen  monuments  seem  inclined  to 
favour, — in  any  case,  such  a  population,  endowed  with 
Philistine  (Phoenician  or  Pelasgic)  arts  and  arms,  would 
feel  themselves  no  more  embarrassed  by  the  aborigines 
whom  they  found  in  situ,  than  the  Quakers,  Puritans, 
Cavaliers,  and   Catholics  of  the  British  colonies  were  by 

•Paris,  1864.     Reviewed  in  the  Bih.  Univ.,  Lansanne,  xxx.  No.  118. 
t  Geographie  der  Nachbarlander  7Eg}-ptens.    4to.  Leipsic,  18.58. 


X,]  RELTOIOrs    WORSHIP.  267 

the  red  Indians.     The  one  race  would  disaDpear  slowly 
before  the  other  without  a  deluge,  or  he  absorbed  into  it. 

But  the  subject  of  the  apparent  disappearance  of  these 
mortuary  rites  from  western  Europe  becomes  more  hipflily 
complicated  when  we  add  to  it  the  equally  mysterious  dis- 
appearance of  all  subsequent  traoesuf  that  early  art  which 
has  so  astonished  antiquaries  recently,  by  the  admirab'e 
productions  which  it  left  entombed  m  the  caves  of  Peri- 
gord.  '  What '  asks  Dr  Broca  *  '  has  become  of  this  in- 
digenous civilization,  so  original,  so  different  from  all  we 
know?  Did  it  disappear  by  slow  modifications  ?  No;  it 
vanished  suddenly,  leaving  no  trace  behind,  and  everything 
permits  us  to  believe  by  force.  Followingit  without  transi- 
tion we  can  discover  nothing  but  the  imprints  of  a  powerful, 
religious,  warlike  race  equipped  with  a  perfected  armour 
and  knowing  how  to  polish  silex,  but  otherwise  not  dis- 
posed to  industry,  and  total  strangers  to  all  art  sentiment. 
SuflBcient  indication  of  a  brutal  and  conquering  invasion  ! 
The  cave-dwellers  of  the  age  of  Stone,  who  had  acquired 
the  mastery  of  the  soil,  and  had  succeeded  in  extirpating 
the  last  of  the  great  mammifers  of  the  Quaternary  fauna, 
did  not  know  enough  to  defend  themselves  against  the 
irruption  of  barbarians  ;  and  so  we  see  a  sort  o^ pre-lnsforir 
Middle  Ages  intervene,  succeeding  to  beautiful  days  of  a 
more  ancient  premature  civilization,  the  origin  of  which  is 
as  yet  entirely  unknown.'  But  probably  these  people  of 
the  reindeer  sculpture,  so  advanced  in  some  respects,  were 
merely  the  somewhat  softened  and  polished  offspring  of 
the  ruder  savages  of  the  epoch  of  the  old  diluvium.  In 
more  than  one  cavern  the  lower  layers  of  the  soil  contain 
rhinoceros  and  mammoth,  while  the  upper  hold  only  rein- 
deer bones.  The  flints  of  the  second  epoch  were  worked 
by  simple  percussion  precisely  like  those  of  the  first  epoch, 
only  that  the  flakes  were  smaller,  and  therefore  the  work 
finer.  No  rubbing  was  employed  in  either.  The  knives 
of  both  epochs  are  precisely  alike.  We  may  then  conclude 
from  the  sculptures  of  the  reindeer  cave-men  of  Perigord 
that  the  still  more  ancient  cave-hear  people  of  the  grotto  of 
Aurignac  had  begun  to  make  designs.     One  such,  in  fact, 

*  Address  before  the  Anthropological  Society,  Hist,  des  Travaux  de 
1855-6. 


268  THE  FOCR  TYPES  OP  [lECT. 

has  been  discovered  by  M.  Garrigou,  in  another  Pyrenean 
cave  — a  pebble,  on  which  are  cut  the  outlines  of  a  bear.* 

It  woulti  seem  m  fact  impossible  for  a  race^  however 
low  m  mental  capacity,  to  continue  for  many  generations 
pecking  away  at  flint  nodules  to  make  weapons,,  and  at 
marrow-bones  to  obtain  iood,  without  developing  ideas  of 
form  and  the  desire  of  producing  them  at  will.  Just  so 
the  ceremonial  rites  of  interment  must  have  grown  up 
slowly  from  the  most  imperfect  and  accidental  beginnings; 
and  any  ideas  of  a  hereafter  must  have  been  educed  by 
chance  from  the  accidents  of  life,  through  the  religious 
faculty;  just  as  accidental  likenesses  in  stones  and  bones, 
and  chance  marks  which  were  made  on  them  by  human 
teeth  and  flint  knives,  must  have  pi'ovoked  the  artistic 
faculty  to  rouse  itself  to  attempt  aesthetic  shapes. 

All  this  was  consistent  with  the  lowest  grades  of 
savagery.  I  have  said  in  a  former  lecture  f  that  all 
evidence  is  against  the  cannibalism  of  the  Scandinavian 
aborigines.  But  in  other  regions  cannibalism  may  have 
prevailed.  The  subject  has  become  lately  a  favourite  and 
fruitful  theme  of  discussion ;  and  the  evidence  against  the 
aborigines  is  growing  formidable.  At  the  recent  festival  at 
Salisbury  in  honour  of  the  opening  of  the  new  Museum 
of  archaeological  relics  Dr  Thurnam  read  a  paper  on  the 
round-head  people  of  the  round  barrows  (corresponding  to 
the  hiigelgraber  of  Germany),  and  the  long-headed  people 
of  the  long  barrows  [reihen  grdber) .  He  asserted  the  priority 
of  the  latter  and  their  evident  addiction  to  human  sacri- 
fices. Mr  Stevens  stated  that  the  human  bones  found  in 
the  pit-dwellings  lately  opened  at  Fullerton  were  all  split 
and  broken  like  those  of  the  animals  with  which  they  were 
found.  In  the  Belgian  caves  the  same  fact  has  been  re- 
marked. M.  Garrigou  (and  M.  Roujou  also)  has  exhibited 
human  bones  from  the  Pyrenean  caves  on  which  exist 
marks  of  methodical  percussion,  intended  for  opening  the 
medullary  canal.  Dr  Clement,  of  St  Aubin  in  Canton 
Neuchatel,  has  found  the  arm-bone  of  a  boy  with  numer- 
ous pointed  teeth-marks  on  its  sides  and  ends. 

War  is  the  normal  social  state  of  all  savages ;  war  with 

•  '  Wliich  by  the  length  of  its  cervical  spiny  apophyses  resembles  more 
ihe  cave-bear  than  any  other  known  species.' 
t  Pages  130,  131. 


X.]  RELIGIOUS    WORSHIP.  269 

the  beasts,  war  with  encroaching  clans.  Their  style  of 
war  was  to  be  crafty,  treacherous,  and  consequently  cruel. 
The  growth  of  religious  ideas  once  introducing  sacrifices, 
war  offers  human  victims,  and  hunger  baits  the  temptation 
sooner  or  later,  which  when  yielded  to,  becomes  a  habit ; 
and  habits  are  hereditary.  The  traces  of  this  custom 
are  visible  in  the  most  civilized  nations  of  antiquity. 
In  Rome  and  Greece  locks  of  human  hair  were  laid  upon 
the  altar.  Human  effigies,  built  up  of  rushes,  were  on 
certain  occasions  solemnly  thrown  into  the  Tiber.  Mr 
Blyth  thinks  that  the  same  explanation  will  suit  for  the 
red  powder  which  the  Hindoos  throw  about  upon  each 
other  in  their  religious  festivals. 

But  whether  fllowers,  or  food,  or  incense,  or  ornaments 
and  arms,  or  horses  and  slaves,  or  hecatombs  of  captured 
enemies  were  offered  in  the  sacrifices  of  the  advancing 
ages  — all  these  rites,  however  beautiful  some,  however 
horrible  others,  were  but  the  many-sided  aspects  of  one 
aboriginal  idea,  the  primitive  religion  of  mankind,  the 
pure  and  simple  worship  of  the  dead. 

I  have  said  the  pure  and  simple  worship  of  the  dead. 
What,  then,  was  the  aboriginal  savage's  idea  of  immortality  ? 
A  life  beyond  the  grave ;  no  more,  no  less.  How  then 
did  it  differ  from  the  Egyptian,  Greek,  and  Roman  ideas  of 
the  state  of  the  departed ;  and  from  that  faith  which  the 
Christian  casts   as  his  anchor   into  Heaven  ? 

All  things  are  valued  by  relationships.  A  life  this  side 
the  grave  cannot  be  the  same  for  any  two  living  beings ; 
how  can  the  life  yon  side  be  other  than  most  manifold  ? 
And  its  idea,  if  not  mere  book-lore,  must  be  likewise  mani- 
fold. The  Egyptian's  eternal  mansion  was  a  combination 
of  Palace  hall  and  Parisian  restaurant.  The  Greek  of 
Homer's  day  anticipated  an  Elysium  such  as  Ossian  sang. 
The  artists  and  philosophers  of  the  Empire  half  believed 
in  a  Hades  of  pensive,  ennuied,  gentle,  garrulous  and  re- 
gretful shadows,  such  as  Dante  has  described,  and  Bocca- 
cio's  '  Decameron '  embodies  in  more  earthly  substantiality. 
The  savage  knew  nothing  of  life  but  its  wants  and  woes, 
its  haggard  forests,  death  chills,  demon-like  wild  beasts, 
famines,  incurable  diseases;  what  could  nis  faith  in  im- 
mortality do  for  his  hooped  and   sJiackled  nature  ?     His 


270  THE    FOUR    TYPES    OP  [lECT. 

worship  of  the  dead  was  but  the  germ  of  a  reh'gion,  a  va.ev^ 
instinct  of  his  animal  aflfections  — nothing  more. 

The  heaven  of  the  Christian  is  a  blinding:  reflection 
from  the  skies  of  all  the  beauties  and  sublimities  that  th'.' 
eye  of  the  poet  has  seen  upon  the  earth ;  of  all  the  sweet- 
ness of  this  life  that  the  heart  of  parent  and  lover  has  ever 
tasted;  of  all  those  sun-lit  regions  of  science  which  the 
latest  civilizations  have  conquered  and  possessed.  The 
immortality  of  the  ancients  was  the  immortality  of  the 
deadj  with  their  faces  always  turned  regretfully  towards 
the  life  that  they  had  lost,  because  it  was  real  life ;  while 
their  immortality  was  but  an  eternal  death,  without  an 
object  and  without  activity.  Jesus  came  and  stood  and 
said,  '  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living ;  ^ 
therefore  we  say  of  Him  that  '  He  brought  a  living  immor- 
tality to  light.-* 

Yet  after  all,  the  Christian  religion  is  but  the  ancient 
worship  of  the  dead,  sublimated,  glorified,  intensified, 
made  more  concrete  in  its  objects  and  details,  and  con- 
centrated upon  one  figure  around  which  all  its  ceremonial 
is  grouped. 

II.  The  second  type  of  religion  is  that  of  the  worship  ot 
the  powers  of  nature.  Fetichism  is  its  lowest  form ; 
astrology  and  fire-worship  its  highest  forms ;  but  in  every 
aspect  its  essential  nature  consists  in  the  worship  of  the 
material  parts  of  the  world,  under  the  false  impression 
that  they  possess  powers  which  they  do  not.  This  ought 
to  be  distinctly  understood.  There  is  a  true  and  reason- 
able worship  of  the  powers  of  nature,  which  regards  theii- 
just  sublimities,  loves  and  respects  their  concurrent  har- 
monies, burns  with  a  grateful  sense  of  their  blessed  in- 
fluences on  the  life  of  man,  and  shudders  at  the  imagination 
of  disasters  which  the  understanding  can  explain  and  even 
sometimes  can  predict  but  not  prevent,  nor  even  yet  per- 
haps  escape  from. 

But  a  Fetich  is  a  natural  object  superstition  sly  beloved 
or  feared  because  supposed  to  possess  unknown,  peculiar, 
or  magical  powers.  A  fetich  is  a  thing  personified  by 
ignorant  people  so  as  to  be  considered  able  to  act — 1.  volun- 
tarily ;  2.  under  the  influence  of  a  kind  or  unkind  feelinjr 
towards  man  ;  and  3.  witli  some  other  kind  of  power  thnu 
its  nature  would  suo-ijest. 


X.]  KELIGIODS    WORSHIP,  271 

The  earliest  Fetiches,  no  doubt,  were  stones  and  sticks. 

A  stone,  for  instance,  has  the  power  to  lie  still  where  it 
js  put,  but  not  to  get  up  of  itself;  it  can  roll  down-hill, 
but  not  up-hill.  Imagine  our  horror  at  seeing  a  rock  slowly 
and  deliberately  rolling  itself  to  the  top  of  a  hill !  or  an 
A  ipine  aiguille  nodding  to  us  and  standing  again  erect ! 
Yet  that  is  the  horror  of  the  fetich.  One  of  the  most 
effective  scenes  in  the  spurious  continuation  of  Bunyan's 
Pilgrim^s  Progress  is  that  where  the  wretched  man  is 
hurried  off  by  demons  towards  the  mouth  of  the  pit,  while 
all  the  trees  along  the  road-side  draw  back  their  branches 
from  his  despairing  grasp  except  two  twigs,  which  merci- 
fully advance  themselves,  and  by  which  he  holds  on  and  is 
saved.  Amadis  de  Gaul  and  all  the  romance  literature  of 
Tihe  days  of  chivalry  abounds  in  this  conception  by  the 
imagination  of  a  voluntary,  kind  or  malignant,  power, 
resident  in  things.  It  is  the  characteristic  of  our  dream 
life  ;  it  makes  nightmare  nightmare.  It  characterizes  all 
child  life.  It  makes  itself  dominant  not  only  over  the 
savage  population  of  the  globe,  but  over  the  most  culti- 
vated minds  at  special  times,  and  in  respect  to  special 
things.  I  have  known  a  well-balanced  mind,  set  free  from 
all  superstitions  but  one,  ascribe  a  prophetic  power  of  mis- 
chief to  broken  glass.  I  have  heard  the  most  enlightened 
and  liberalized  people  confess  to  a  superstitious  faith  in 
those  charming  fetiches  the  precious  gems;  and  in- 
numerable are  the  beautiful  legends  on  record  respecting 
their  magical  powers.  I  have  myself  worn  for  four  years 
an  amulet  which  no  money  would  buy ;  and  since  I  have 
worn  it  my  life  has  been  most  pi'osperous.  I  will  show  it 
to  you — it  is  the  nail  on  which  John  Brown  hung  up  his 
coat  and  hat  all  the  time  he  was  incarcei'ated  in  Charles- 
town  jail.  A  friend  of  mine,  a  brigade  surgeon  in  General 
Patterson^s  army,  the  fii'st  man  who  entered  the  cell  when 
our  troops  occupied  the  place  (in  1861),  looking  round  the 
room  saw  nothing  he  could  bring  away  for  me  but  this 
one  nail,  which  the  jailor  told  him  had  been  thus  used, — I 
hope  it  is  my  only  fetich. 

What  married  woman  in  this  audience  of  Boston  lUumi- 
natae  would  not  feel  heart-sick  with  a  nameless  premoni- 
tion of  impending  evil  if  her  wedding-ring  should  snap 
asunder  ?     That  is  her  fetich.      When  the  sword  fell  from 


272  THE    FOUR    TYPES    OP  [lECT, 

the  castle- wall,  the  seneschal  never  thought  of  ascribing  it 
to  the  fatigue  of  leather ,  but  to  a  voluntary  ability  in  the 
sword  itself  to  sound  an  alarm  of  danger  to  the  noble 
house  of  whose  possessions  it  had  been  both  grantor  and. 
guarantee. 

It  is  impossible  to  enumerate  the  instances  of  existing 
fetich  worship  in  the  uncultivated  world.  The  worship  oi' 
the  horse-shoe  is  still  almost  universal ;  I  may  explain  its 
origin  hereafter.  So  is  the  observance  of  the  divining 
rod ,  which  has  a  similar  origin.  Of  ten  or  twelve  thou- 
sand wells  bored  during  the  last  eight  years  in  the  Venango 
county  oil-region  in  Pennsylvania  a  thousand  (more  or 
less)  were  located  by  diviners  with  a  divining  rod;  or 
with  a  pendulum  made  of  a  deerskin  bag  enclosing  a  ball 
of  musk ;  or  by  spiritualists  falling  into  trances  and  exe- 
cuting spasmodic  evolutions  when  they  felt  the  influence 
of  the  spot  to  be  selected.  There  is  a  popular  lecturer 
on  geology  whose  wife  practises  the  profession  of  a 
spiritual  explorer  by  help  of  this  kind  of  fetich.  The 
other  day  she  held  a  piece  of  antimony  ore  to  her  forehead 
and  immediately  fell  into  a  rhapsodical  description  of  a 
charming  lake-country,  in  Canada,  through  which  the 
vein  of  that  ore  runs.  I  have  seen  shafts  sunk  after  silver 
in  the  glades  of  Somerset  county,  Pennsylvania,  under  the 
dictation  of  an  old  scamp  who  would  lay  in  his  hunting 
cap  a  small  looking-glass  which  had  cabalistic  characters 
on  the  back  of  it  and  was  called  an  erdspiegel ;  and  then 
hiding  his  own  face  over  it  he  would  describe  the  depth 
exactly  to  an  inch  of  all  the  minei'al  wonders  that  ho  saA\- 
beneath  the  surface.  So  strongly  did  the  imagination  of 
this  fetich  act  upon  his  workmen,  simple  old  German 
immigrants  from  the  mother-land  of  superstition  as  they 
were,  that  they  affirmed  with  all  their  faith  that  when  at 
work  at  the  bottom  of  their  shaft  they  could  distinctly  hear 
invisible  agents  laughing,  talking,  pounding,  picking  be- 
neath their  feet,  removing  the  treasure  downward  out  of 
reach  ;  for  of  course  they  never  found  it. 

Now  if  all  this  and  a  thousand  times  more  of  it  be 
possible  in  our  day,  in  this  fresh  land  of  honest,  open  work, 
compelling  nature  to  say  all  and  no  more  than  what  she 
knows — to  do  all  and  no  more  than  what  she  has  the 
power  to  do ;   leaving  no  hole  or  corner  of  the  globe  an 


X.]  BELiaiOUS   WORSHIP.  273 

unexplored  retreat  of  tlie  mysterious ;  witli  libraries  full  of 
demonstrations  of  the  exact  ability  of  every  created  agency 
to  harm  or  heal  us ;  with  public  schools  to  save  our  sons 
and  daughters  from  the  ineradicable  first  infection  of  this 
superstition  of  the  fetich^  how  overwhelming  a  deluge  of 
it  must  have  submerged  the  early  souls  of  men ;  those 
hapless  savages  who  trembled  at  every  leaf-fall  and  fled 
with  averted  faces  from  every  natural  object  a  little  out  of 
the  ordinary  shape.*  What  more  inevitable  than  that 
such  shapes  as  isolated  pillars  of  rock,  stones  curiously 
perched  on  peaks  and  movable  by  the  hand's  touch,  and 
ambrose  stones,  cheese-rings,  boulders  in  river  currents, 
labyrinthine  caves  and  horrid  clefts  between  high  crags, 
made  grandly  vocal  with  the  voice  of  cataracts  and  with 
the  awful  roar  of  beasts ;  what  more  inevitable  than  that 
these  objects  of  nature  should  come  to  be  feared  and 
worshipped  ?  f 

This  was  sure  to  be  the  case  when  they  imitated  even 
in  the  least  degree  the  forms  of  man  or  beast.  Such  a 
pillar  of  red  saliferous  sandstone  capped  by  a  fragment  of 
a  layer  of  white  limestone  as  the  traveller  may  see  stand- 
ing half  way  up  the  mountain  side  and  overlooking  the  west 
shore  of  the  Dead  Sea.,  was  sure  to  have  some  horrible 
Lot's-wife  legend  attached  to  it.  Two  months  ago  as  I 
passed  along  the  southern  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  St  Law- 
rence, rounding  the  point  of  Gaspe,  I  saw  a  rock  called  the 
Old  Man,  and  was  told  that  some  few  years  ago  another 
stood  beside  it  called  the  Old  Woman,  but  the  surf  had 
carried  that  away.  The  ocean  is  a  great  artificer  of  such 
rude  effigies,  making  and  breaking  them  wherever  there 
are  suitable  rocks  on  any  coast.  And  the  ancient  savages 
were  fishermen,  and  lived  upon  the  coast,  and  sailed 
among  these  cliff's ;  and  many  a  father's  dead  body  was 
found  near  some  remarkable  rock,  which  grew  to  be  the 
special  object  of  his  children's  reverence ;  and  many  a 
legend  of  dead  warriors  got  mingled  up  with  new-formed 

•  See  good  instances  mentioned  by  Livingstone. 

f  See  in  '  Harper  '  of  November  the  account  of  the  Indian  worship  of 
Mount  Popocatapetl,  '  the  smoking  mountain.'  See  the  picture  and 
description  of  Mount  Barkal,  in  Upper  Egypt,  by  Lepsius,  Reise.  See 
also  -the  views  of  the  cleft  mountain  behind  Delphi,  in  Greece,  and  the 
cleft  rock  in  front  of  the  temple  of  Pbilcp. 

18 


274  THE    FOUR   TYPES    OF  [lECT. 

})rodigie.s  of  the  erosive  powers  of  the  sea;  transitions 
from  ancestor  worship  to  fetich  worship,  and  mixtures  of 
the  two.  In  this  way  we  can  explain  the  frequency  o 
legends  of  animated  stones,  and  human  beings  turned  tc 
stones,  and  in  fact  all  the  phenomena  of  early  idolatry, 
together  with  that  other  class  of  legends  wherein  trees  are 
substituted  for  rocks,  maidens  changed  into  laurel  and 
myrtle  and  cypress,  spirits  confined  in  oaks,  and  the  whole 
range  of  similar  superstitions.  But  I  shall  show  you 
hereafter  that  even  for  these  superstitions  there  was  a  solid 
historical  basis,  apart  from  all  disposition  in  the  human 
imagination  to  personify  and  deify  or  diabolize  the  benefi- 
cent and  noxious  qualities  of  natural  things.  We  must 
never  forget  that  Druid  priests  lived  under  oaks,  and  their 
spirits  were  supposed'  to  haunt  them  afterwards.  The 
hunter  who  fell  from  the  rock  was  supposed  to  become 
identified  with  the  rock.  Superstition  acts  upon  material 
objects  to  convert  them  into  fetiches  just  as  heat  acts  upon 
a  bar  of  iron  to  make  of  it  a  magnet.  It  was  not  the  height 
of  the  rocky  summit  that  evoked  the  savage^ s  devotion, 
but  the  remembrance  of  some  salvation  there ;  it  was  his 
Ararat.  It  was  not  the  tickled  fancy  which  grew  reverent 
before  the  natural  rocking-stone.  It  was  its  unaccountable 
and  imposing  resemblance  to  the  boat  which  had  been  to 
his  race  both  mother  and  father  in  one — obtaining  for  him 
food  in  life,  saving  him  in  storms  fi-om  death,  and  furnish- 
ing him  with  a  burial-place — that  made  him  reverent. 

But  the  intellectual  ground  of  fetich  worship  is  now,  and 
always  has  been,  ignorance  of  natural  history.  The  fetich 
is  the  first  physical  object  which  strikes  the  bewildered  eye 
as  wanting  its  own  explanation.  In  this  sense  the  range 
of  the  fetich  is  immense.  It  is  not  confined  to  sticks  and 
stones.  It  ascends  to  the  platform  of  classic  art.  The 
Greek  priests  made  their  statues  live  and  move  and  speak 
and  weep,  as  Romish  priests  do  now.  Memnon's  statue 
with  its  sunrise  music  was  a  splendid  fetich. 

We  can  ascend  still  higher.  I  have  mentioned  the  ■wor- 
ship of  gems,  endowed  with  superhuman  intelligence. 
But  there  is  a  far  more  refined  fetichism  than  that.  The 
whole  system  of  the  Cabala  is  built  upon  it.  In  ancient 
times  extraordinary  powers  were  assigned  to  words  and 
numbers.    They  were  treated  as  entities,  powerful  entities. 


X,]  EELIQIOUS    WORSHIP.  275 

You  know  how  full  the  stories  of  the  Thousand  Nights  are 
of  this.  The  name  of  Solomon  was  the  most  powerful  of 
all  fetiches.  He  who  could  speak  it  rightly  could  bind 
and  loose  spirits^  fly  like  a  bird,  and  in  fact  command  all 
the  powers  of  nature.  The  King  of  the  Genii  was  confined 
thousands  of  years  in  a  casket  merely  because  Solomon's 
seal  was  upon  it.  The  story  has  been  repeated  in  many 
forms.  Asmodeus  was  thus  shut  up  in  a  modern  magi- 
cian's phial.  No  satisfactory  explanation  of  this  class  of 
superstitions  has  ever  been  published,  to  my  knowledge. 
It  must  have  some  basis  in  real  life.  Primal  error,  which 
is  a  nothing,  cannot  bear  fruit.  The  Pythagorean  system 
of  Philosophy  turned  on  the  magic  powers  of  numbers. 
There  is  a  great  disposition  in  the  human  mind  to  dwell  on 
coincidences.  We  are  fascinated  by  the  magic  square,  for 
instance,  which  adds  up  the  same  in  all  directions.  I  was 
once  introduced  to  a  learned  Rabbinical  scholar  living  in 
Berlin.  His  room  was  so  full  of  tobacco  smoke  when  I 
entered  it  that  I  could  hardly  discern  his  form  at  the  far  end. 
But  I  soon  found  that  his  head  was  so  much  fuller  of  tal- 
mudic  and  cabaUstic  lore  that  it  was  impossible  to  see  any 
truth  through  that  fog.  He  assured  me  that  there  was  such 
power  in  a  name,  that  the  moment  of  the  christening  of  a 
child  was  the  most  solemn  and  sublime  of  all  the  momenta 
in  his  history.  For  as  he  was  named  so  he  became.  The 
name  had  the  power  of  destiny,  and  involved  in  its  own 
letters  all  the  events  of  that  child's  existence. 

Now  how  could  such  a  curious  system  of  fetichism 
arise  ?  I  have  given  you  the  explanation,  in  part,  in  my 
lecture  on  the  alphabet.  The  letters  of  a  name  are  sym- 
bolic ;  their  conjunction  was  cabalistic.  But  fully  to  com- 
prehend the  importance  of  a  word  to  the  old  nations,  one 
must  imagine  for  himself  the  rise  of  the  secret  priesthoods, 
the  sacred  mysteries,  the  freemasonries  with  their  signs  and 
pass  words,*  Solomon  was  the  representative  Cell  Man, 
or  Cabalist,  head  of  all  the  orders  of  freemasons  clerical 
and  lay,  so  to  speak,  that  have  ever  existed.f     His  name 

*  "^ST  DaBaR,  Hebrew,  a  word,  is  the  same  as  lan  DeBiR,  the  taber- 
nacle of  Jehovah, 

t  Solomon,  SUalmanezer,  Carloman,  Charlemagne,  such  names  are  may- 
poles upon  which  have  been  hung  all  the  garlands  of  mythology,  for  the 
nations  to  dance  around.     Solomon  calls  himself  (if  he  wrote  the  book) 


276  THE  FOUR  TYPES  OF  [lECT. 

waSj  in  fact,  the  embodied  idea  of  the  Mystery ;  it  stood 
for  the  whole  body  of  occult  lore.  But  it  therefore  stood 
for  the  whole  political  power  of  the  initiated  classes.  Its 
use  by  any  man  was  a  guarantee  of  his  good  standing  in 
the  society,  of  responsibility  as  a  messenger,  of  authority 
as  an  agent.  All  the  spirits  of  the  throne  and  the  pulpit, 
the  work-bench  and  the  writing-table,  were  obedient  to  it. 
Hence,  legends  like  that  of  Prospero  and  Ariel;  Faust 
and  Mephistopheles ;  Friar  Bacon  and  Father  Bungay; 
legends  so  devised  as  to  conceal  the  real  spirits,  the  real 
magicians,  and  the  real  words-of-command ;  but  legends 
which,  doing  this  work  for  their  inventors,  did  also  another 
for  themselves,  infused  into  the  common  people  of  every 
race  a  fresh  and  more  subtle  spirit  of  mystic  fetichism,  so 
penetrating  and  intangible  in  its  character  that  the  wisest, 
most  learned,  and  most  holy  men  of  modern  times  have 
not  escaped  its  influence.     For, 

One  step  more,  and  we  reach  the  highest  grade  of 
fetichism ,  rising  insensibly  from  all  before  described. 
What  is  an  orthodox  creed,  but  a  mystic  word-fetich  ? 
Look  at  the  wafer  elevated  by  the  Romish  priest  in  the 
sacrifice  of  the  mass  as  a  piece  of  God-man — thousands 
prosti-ate  before  it,  not  daring  even  to  look  at  it,  so  awful 
is  their  dread  of  its  power  to  bless  them  and  to  curse 
them,  to  annihilate  them  instantly  !  Yet  that  is  merely  a 
thing -fetich.  Look  now  at  that  dogma  elevated  by  the 
Protestant  preacher  before  the  logical  understanding  of 
his  audience,  whose  souls  lie  prostrate  in  the  dust  before 
it,  not  daring  to  use  their  reason  on  it,  or  to  look  it  for  a 
moment  in  the  face,  believing,  as  they  must  that  to  doubt 
it  is  to  be  damned  !     That  is  a  word-fetich. 

What  is  the  school  of  Gaussen  and  Hengstenberg 
among  theologians  but  a  sect  of  Christianity  retiring 
from  the  noble  reverence  and  practice  of  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  and  his  apostles  and  from  the  sublime  conceptions 
of  the  Hebrew  poets  and  dropping  backward  and  down- 
ward on  to  the  ground  of  literal  fetichism ;  worshipping 

in  the  beginning  of  Ecclesiastes,  the  Cabalist,  or  quelt  (nVp,)  which  our 
translators  have  rendered  pirac/in;  without  knowing  that  to  preach  =  to 
bark,  i.  e.  to  speak  oracuhirly  (Arkitely)  ;  as,  to  pra^  =  to  bray  ;  and  as, 
to  gabble,  or  talk  gibberish  =  to  gobble,  i.  e.  to  speak  cabalistically ,  or  in 
a  manner  unintelligible  to  the  uninitiated  or  common  people. 


X.]  RELIGIOUS   WORSHIP.  277 

the  letter  which,  Christ  says  it,  must  kill ;  and  converting 
the  literature  of  all  the  Hebrew  ages  from  David  and  Solo- 
mon to  James  and  John  into  a  gilt-edged  quarto  bound  in 
calf;  putting  a  more  fatal  stop  to  the  progress  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  towards  its  millennial  purity  than  ever  did  the 
golden  calf  which  arrested  the  progress  of  Israel  into  their 
promised  land  !  There  are  multitudes  of  Christians  living 
now  who  entertain  so  strongly  the  old  Jewish  reverence 
for  the  word  Jehovah  that  they  bring  themselves  to  pro- 
nounce it  only  with  a  strenuous  effort  of  the  reason  and  the 
will  combined.  It  is  not  simply  from  reverence  for  the  in- 
finite God  whose  special  name  it  is  supposed  to  be — but 
reverence  for  the  word ;  because  it  was  for  ages  one  of  the 
great  world-fetiches  and  called  '  the  unpronounceable/ 
Laymen  had  no  right  to  take  it  on  their  lips.  It  was  a 
privilege  of  clergy.  It  was  fetich — or  tabu — for  the  out- 
side masses.  W\ij  ?  Because  it  lay  at  the  heart  of  the 
special  religious  system  of  the  Hebrews  :  because  it  was 
the  supposed  formula  of  Unitarian  doctrine  as  opposed  to 
all  idolatry ;  because  it  was  translated  *  the  living  God  ' 
and  itself  shared  a  sort  of  weird  life  ;  because  it  was  the 
word-temple  in  which  dwelt  the  shekinah  of  all  transcend- 
ental science ;  veiled,  but  ready  to  break  forth  in  fire  and 
light ;  veiled  like  Isis,  but  before  which  the  initiated  priests 
might  worship  trembling  and  alone.  It  was,  therefore,  to 
the  ancient  Jew,  and  still  is  to  the  devout  but  superstitious 
Christian,  an  awful  silent  logos. 

In  a  still  more  distant  east  we  have  another  instance  of 
an  unpronounceable  word,  a  fetich  formula,  the  key  to  the 
mysteries  of  another  system  of  religious  worship  :  I  refer 
of  course  to  the  sacred  syllable  ATJM  of  the  Brahmans.  It 
is  said  to  be  of  no  known  specific  meaning,  but  to  involve 
in  some  way  the  idea  of  the  Trinity.  Now  we  know  what 
the  Hindu  trinity  is  :  Brahma,  Vishnu,  Siva ;  the  maker, 
preserver,  destroyer.  But  why  these  three  are  so  related 
to  each  other  and  to  human  history,  or  how  they  can  be 
distinguished  by  the  letters  A  TJ  M  (or  any  other  mode  of 
spelling  OM),  has  not  been  clearly  stated;  nor  can  I  venture 
to  demand  your  long  attention  this  evening  to  what  I 
would  consider  the  true  demonstration  of  the  curious 
problem.  I  should  make  it  on  Arkite  grounds;  by  which 
I  mean    that  the  word  itself,  as  pronov/ncedj  has  always 


278  THE    FOUR   TYPES    OF  [lECT, 

been  tlie  symbol  of  Arkite  mystery,  secrecy,  and  initiation  ; 
being  tlie  representative  of  the  roar  or  murmur  of  tbe 
great  deep.  Mim  is  tlie  Hebrew  name  for  tbe  waters  of 
the  sea.*  Amim  is  the  Hebrew  name  for  multitudes  of 
peoples,  the  roar  of  which  goes  up  as  the  voice  of  many 
waters.  I  have  shown  you  that  the  shape  of  the  letter  M 
was  obtained  from  the  water-waved  surface  of  the  sea. 
You  are  all  probably  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the 
pictures  of  the  Hindu  pantheon  to  recognize  in  Vishnu 
the  Fish- Noah,  or  god  of  the  waters,  sleeping  upon  a  coiled 
serpent,  the  symbol  of  water,  and  representing  the  pre- 
serving genius  of  the  ark.  Brahma  as  the  father-creator 
represents  the  genius  of  the  mountain.  And  Siva,  the 
destroyer,  his  name  being  identical  with  the  Typhon  of 
the  west,  represents  the  devouring  deluge.  Then,  al- 
though the  three  letters  A  TJ  M  are  of  western  form,  and 
the  analogous  Sanscrit  letters  have  been  so  changed  as  to 
conceal  their  old  meanings,  the  identity  of  the  A  with  Brah- 
ma, TJ  with  Vishnu,  and  M  with  Siva,  follows  as  a  matter 
of  course ;  and  there  is  no  longer  any  wonder  that  this 
Om  is  too  dreadful  a  fetich  to  be  pronounced,  and  too 
sacred  to  be  taught  by  any  Brahman  to  a  man  of  any 
other  caste.  And  yet  in  spite  of  the  prohibition  it  has 
escaped.  It  leaked  out  into  many  languages  in  the  earliest 
times.  It  formed  part  of  many  of  the  most  sacred  western 
words ;  such  as.  Omphalos,  the  navel,  a  name  for  the 
Delphic  oracle;  Triomphe,  the  cry  or  watchword  of  the 
priests  of  Bacchus;  umber  and  imher,  darkness  and  storm; 
amher,'\  the  precious  electron  found  floating  on  the  waves. 
The  Irish  Druids  called  by  this  name,  Omh,J  the  living 
God,  and  defined  its  meaning  '  He  who  is.''  There  is  very 
little  doubt  that  it  is  the  Ob  or  spirit  of  divination  men- 
tioned in  the  Hebrew  scriptures,  and  the  Obi  or  necro- 
mantic power  of  the  blacks  of  Western  Africa.     It  is  not 

*  Egyptian  ham-ham,  to  roar  (Bunsen,  vol.  i.  p.  462) ;  Coptic 
liem-hem,  to  roai ,  hm,  to  fish,  p.  463 ;  mhi,  to  draw  water,  p.  469 ;  mah, 
water  (Bunsen  cites  Leemans,  viii.  xiv.  xvi.  for  this,  on  p.  468). 

f  Am,  Egyptian,  gem  or  pearl.  Bunsen,  p.  455  (Coptic  ana-met),  and 
anm  (p.  456).— 

X  CJf.  Jmn,  Egyptian  name  of  Jupiter,  Coptic  anicun  ;  and  also  the  Egyp 
tian  verb,  to  conceal ;  Coptic  amoni.  Compare  with  this  the  Amen  of  the 
Hebrew,  and  the  Egyptian  ma  (Coptic  me,  met),  truth,  true.  Cf.  also 
amut  (Coptic  amen-t),  Hades ;  and  am-t  (cf.  ouom),  devourer. 


X.]  EELIGI0U8   WORSHIP.  279 

impossible  that  it  occurs  in  sucli  modern  words  as  hiimhug; 
for  the  second  syllable  of  that  word  is  undoubtedly  (like 
bugger,  and  bugaboo)  the  Scythian  hog,  once  meaning 
god  (Bacchus)  and  now  devil.  It  probably  occurs  in  our 
word  Umpire,  or  judge  in  equity,  but  refers  in  this  case 
not  to  the  man,  but  to  the  bar  or  court  whose  laws  he 
but  administered. 

The  unpronounceable  divine  name  among  the  Hebrews  is 
perhaps  the  best  introduction  we  could  have  to  the  history 
of  the  third  type  of  religious  worship  which  I  have  now 
to  describe. 

m.  The  worship  of  the  gods  in  heaven. 

You  may  remember  that  our  first  type  of  religion  in- 
volved the  worship  which  the  early  inhabitants  of  the 
earth  paid,  and  many  of  its  present  inhabitants  still  pay  to 
their  dead  parents  and  ancestors.  The  second  type  of 
religion,  the  last  described,  coeval  in  its  origin  and  co- 
extensive in  its  duration  with  the  first,  was  fetichism,  the 
worship  of  the  powers  of  nature  as  expressed  unintel- 
ligibly or  magically  in  the  objects  of  sense — mountains  and 
seas,  rocks  and  trees,  sounds  in  the  air,  works  of  art,  and 
words  and  creeds  constructed  by  the  priests. 

Now  the  third  type  of  religion  is  the  worship  of  the 
invisible  God  as  a  creator,  preserver,  benefactor,  and  judge. 

It  has  been  the  central  question  of  all  critical  theology 
how  this  religious  conception  was  generated  in  the  soul 
of  man.  Was  it  aboriginal  ?  Or  has  it  been  developed 
gradually  by  civilization  ?  Was  it  revealed  at  first  ?  Or  did 
it  reside  as  an  innate  co-essenfial  germ  of  intelligence  in  the 
human  intellect  as  such  ?  Was  it  the  common  property  of 
the  earliest  people  and  afterwards  lost  amid  the  sins  and 
miseries  of  migrating  races,  enslaved  races,  isolated  races, 
perishing  races  ?  Or  was  it  committed  as  a  sacred  and 
pecuHar  privilege  to  one  chosen  people  for  safe  keeping 
until  the  fulness  of  times  had  come  and  the  Son  of  God 
was  revealed  and  the  new  dispensation  was  inaugurated 
and  the  apostles  were  sent  forth  to  fill  the  earth  with  the  light 
and  warmth  of  that  '  life  eternal,  which  is  the  knowledge 
of  the  true  God,  and  of  Jesus  Christ  whom  he  hath  sent.* 

Of  these  theories,  the  last  is  held  to  be  the  true  one  by 
orthodox  Christians.  But  it  is  opposed  in  many  points  to 
the  results  of  that  criticism  of  the  religious  history  of  inan- 


280  THE    FOUR    TYPES    OF  [LECT. 

kind  whicli  the  modern  sciences  have  forced  the  honest 
seekers  after  truth  to  undertake.  Of  course  I  will  not 
have  time  this  evening  to  pursue  the  discussion  far.  But 
I  must  at  least  point  out  the  place  where  men  of  science 
stand  to  view  the  rise  of  the  divine  idea  in  man  — that 
glorious  sunrise  of  the  soul — the  only  sunrise  in  the 
history  of  mankind. 

The  idea  of  an  invisible  God  finds  its  only  analogy  in 
the  knowledge  which  the  domestic  relations  give  to  chil- 
dren of  their  parents.  It  is  reasonable  therefore,  that  it 
sprang  as  a  natural  development  out  of  the  worship  of 
dead  ancestors.  If  the  idea  of  God  be  that  of  a  being 
invisible,  creative,  provident,  protective  and  judicial,  it 
differs  in  no  resjpect  from  a  combination  of  the  two  ideas 
of  a  living  father,  and  a  father  who  has  entered  his  eternal 
mansion.  Do  you  object,  however,  that  the  idea  of  God  is 
far  grander  ?  I  grant  it :  but  that  is  a  matter  of  degrees. 
The  definition  of  the  young  minister  which  took  by  storm 
the  sufirages  of  the  Assembly  of  the  Westminster  Divines  : 
— '  God  is  a  spirit,  infinite,  eternal,  and  unchangeable,  in  his 
being,  wisdom,  power,  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and 
truth,'  was  the  glorious  consummation  of  all  the  religious 
feeling  and  reasoning  of  all  ages  — the  flower  of  human 
thought,  ripened  in  the  choicest  soil  of  the  last  deposits  of 
the  waters  of  civilization.  Wisdom,  power,  justness, 
goodness,  truth  !  What  are  these  but  human  attributes 
on  which  the  whole  superstructure  of  ancestor  worship 
has  been  built?  But  the  three  epithets,  Infinite,  Eternal, 
and  Unchangeable,  are  transcendental  ideas,  evolved  by 
science ;  abstractions,  only  possible  to  well-formed,  well- 
bred  brains;  enlargements  of  the  savage  notion  of  a 
father's  character  by  civilized  thinkers  whose  material 
horizon  has  been  widened  by  travel ;  whose  astronomy  has 
changed  its  starry  firmament  into  realms  of  interstellar 
space;  whose  lives  of  leisure  have  allowed  free  scope  for 
poetry  as  well  as  practice ;  and  made  love,  not  fear,  the 
law  of  thought.  Love  is,  like  heat,  the  great  expander. 
God   is   a   product    of   philanthropy.*        The    shiveringj 

•  Benevolence  is  an  unknown  instinct  in  the  lower  animals  until  they 
are  domesticated  with  mankind;  for  their  love  of  offspring  is  not  only 
selfish,  but  provisional,  and  in  all  its  exhibitions  savage  and  cruel.  Bene- 
volence  is   foreign  also   to  the  animal  part  of  man's   economy;   the 


X.]  RELIGIOUS   WORSHIP.  281 

hungry,  timorous  savage  of  tlic  earliest  days  had  not 
enough  of  love  about  his  house  to  make  a  small-  sized  god 
of.  Infinite  !  Eternal !  Unchangeable  !  Men  could  begin 
to  comprehend  such  epithets — to  invent  them  rudely  I 
should  rather  say — when  they  began  to  build  pyramids  and 
'  eternal  mansions '  for  their  departed  great :  but  not 
before. 

We  find,  therefore,  no  trace  of  our  idea  of  Deity  in  the 
earliest  history  of  mankind.  The  Hebrew  writers  report 
indeed  such  traces ;  but  their  reports  are  not  evidence 
because  not  contemporary.  They  only  go  to  show  what 
was  the  idea  of  God  among  the  Jews  after  the  times  of 
David,  subsequent  to  whom  all  their  Scriptures  seem  to 
have  been  written.  Or,  if  the  earlier  books  should  be 
considered  as  compilations  from  fragments  of  an  older 
time — an  opinion  now  placed  almost  above  discussion — 
such  fragments  prove,  not  that  our  idea  of  God  existed  at 
the  beginning  of  history,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  did 
not  so  exist.  You  will  find  an  admirable  resum'S  of  the 
evidence  of  the  truth  of  this  statement  in  Chapter  V.  of  a 
book  by  William  Rathbone  Greg,  entitled  Creed  of 
Christendom.  You  need,  however,  merely  refresh  your 
biblical  memories,  and  recall  a  few  texts,  to  see  at  once 
that  the  common  notion  of  a  special  revelation  to  the 
Jews  as  a  peculiar  people  of  the  fact  of  the  existence  of 
One  God   has  no  foundation  whatever. 

Milman  and  others  speak  of  the  pure  monotheism  of  the 
Jews  as  a  singular  phenomenon,  confined  to  the  narrow 
strip  of  land  called  Palestine,  where  '  the  worship  of  one 
Almighty  Creator  of  the  universe  subsisted  as  its  only 
sanctuary,  and  where,  in  every  stage  of  society,  under  the 
pastoral  tent  of  Abraham,  and  in  the  sumptuous  temple  of 
Solomon,  the  same   creed  maintained  its  inviolable   sim- 

storaach  laughs  at  it ;  but  the  savage  is  little  else  than  a  reasoning 
stomach  ;  he  immolates  his  parents,  and  exposes  his  children,  when  they 
cease  to  benefit  his  own  life,  or  gratify  his  own  desires.  Benevolence  did 
not  enter — could  not  enter  into  the  early  idea  of  a  God.  The  Hebrew 
Jehovah  is  a  selfish  personage.  The  Christian  God  is  Love  itself.  It  is 
not  made  out  whether  r/ood  is  from  ffod,  or  ffod  from  good ;  or  whether 
indeed  there  is  any  direct  connection  between  these  words. 


282  THE    FOUR   TYPES    OP  [lECT. 

plicity.''*  No  !  Their  own  writings  show  that  they  were 
incessantly  and  unconquerably  idolatrous.  No  punish- 
ments could  cure  them.  The  High  Priest  of  Jehovah 
is  described  as  worshipping  the  Egyptian  Apis  while 
Jehovah  was  thundering  his  law  to  this  high  priest's 
brother  on  the  top  of  the  mountain  before  their  eyes. 
And  when  that  law  came  down  in  his  hands,  it  contained 
no  notice  of  the  doctrine  of  an  only  true  God.  Its  first 
commandment  merely  forbade  the  people  to  whom  it  was 
sent   from  worshipping  any  other  than  their  own  God. 

The  fact  is  evident,,  that  Jehovah  was  the  family  God  of 
the  Abrahfimidse  ;  and  therefore  became  subsequently  the 
national  God  of  the  Hebrews.  I  do  not  mean  by  this,  a 
family  god  in  the  sense  of  the  ancestor  worship  ;  but  a 
god  considered  by  the  Hebrew  progenitors  of  David  and 
Solomon,  whoever  they  were,  as  the  lar  or  baL[j.(ov  of  their 
house.  It  looks  as  if  it  were  an  adopted  deity,  adopted 
by  the  Hebrews  (if  they  were  Hyksos)  from  the  Egyptian 
NTJK  PU  NUK,  the  '  unknown  God,'  the  male  Isis,  whose 
veil  could  not  be  raised ;  the  god  who  refused  to  tell  his 
worshippers  his  name ;  a  name  in  fact  in  process  of  in- 
vention. The  story  reads  that  this  God  called  Abram  out 
of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees ;  of  course  the  call  came  from  the 
God  at  his  own  home — in  Palestine ;  he  was  a  western 
deity.  The  story  says  that  Abram's  parents  worshipped 
other  gods  (although  in  Gen.  xxxi.  53,  we  read,  ''the  God 
of  Abraham,  the  God  of  Nachor,  the  God  of  their  fathers 
judge  betwixt  us'  !),  and  that  his  children's  cousins  at  the 
old  eastern  homestead  continued  to  do  so  afterwards.  The 
Jehovah  was  evidently  a  western  deity.  His  other  Hebrew 
name,  Adonai,  shows  this  still  more  plainly ;  for  it  is  the 
Adonis  of  the  Syrian  worship,  and  was  introduced  into 
the  pantheon  of  Egj^t  by  Amenoph  IV.  a  Pharaoh  of  the 
18th  dynasty,  who  took  this  God's  name  instead  of  Am- 
mon's  in  his  own,  calling  himself  no  longer  Amen-oph,  but 
Khou-en-Aten,  or  the  splendour  of  the  solar  disc.  Aten, 
'  the  radiant  disc,'  was  then  the  Syrian  Baal-Adonis,  intro- 
duced into  Egypt  by  the  Hyksos  of  the  previous  (17th) 
dynasty,  under  the  name  of  Sutech.  How  it  happened  that 
a  native  Pharaoh,  a,  lineal  descendant  of  Amosis,  the  ex- 

•  Hist.  Jews,  i.  4. 


X,]  RELIGIOUS    WORSHIP.  283 

peller  of  the  Hyksos  (through  Amenoph  I.,  Thoutmes  I. 
and  III.,  Amenoph  II.,  Thoutmes  IV.,  and  Amenoph 
III.),  should  forsake  Ammon,  persecute  the  old  Egyptian 
ceremonial,  and  become  a  fanatical  propagandist  of  a 
special  form  of  Hyksos- Shemite  faith,  can  only  be  ex- 
plained by  refet-ence  to  the  fact  that  his  mother  was  a 
foreigner.  Her  pictures  at  Tel-Amarna  have  rose-coloured 
(i.  e.  northern-coloured)  flesh.  His  own  most  extraor- 
dinary profile  hints  at  a  strange  and  tragic  family  origin; 
while  similarly  strauge-faced  priests  standing  around  his 
figure  at  the  altar,  on  the  monuments,  intimate  that  his 
reign  was  a  temporary  revolution  in  favour  of  the  only 
half-expelled  and  half-suppressed  Hyksos  population  of  the 
Delta — a  momentary  triumph  of  that  worship,  every  trace  of 
which  the  next  Pharaoh  (Horus)  did  his  best  to  obliterate ; 
but  which  still  survived  in  secret  under  his  successor 
Seti  I.,  the  founder  of  the  19th  dynasty,  and  then 
was  re-established  as  the  worship  of  Seth  by  the  great 
Ramses  II.  and  his  unfortunate  son  Menephtha,  the  so- 
called  Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus. 

Thus  a  direct  connection  is  established  between  the 
Mosaic  woi'ship  of  Jehovah-Adonai,  the  Hyksos  worship 
of  Seth-Aten,  and  the  later  Israelitish  worship  of  Baal- 
Adonis  ;  and  any  noble  character  discoverable  in  the  first 
must  be  related  to  what  natural  refinements  the  already 
long-existing  civilizations  of  those  countries  had  already 
been  enabled  to  produce.  In  later  times  we  are  express- 
ly told  that  the  Jews  of  the  twelve  tribes  worshipped 
Jehfovah  and  Baal  together. 

But  not  to  hurry  on  too  fast,  let  us  remount  from  the 
19th  to  the  1 2th  dynasty,  and  return  from  Moses  to 
Abraham;  for  men's  ideas  are  wonderfully  changed  in 
fifteen  hundred  years,  or  even  in  five  hundred,  to  take  the 
Hebrew  chronology  for  our  guide. 

The  legends  of  Ab ram's  God  Jehovah  exhibit  him  to  us 
in  the  most  anthropomorphic  garb  — the  least  spiritual  and 
Christian  possible.  He  sits  with  Abraham  at  the  door  of 
his  tent.  He  eats  with  him ;  getting  into  an  angry  alter- 
cation with  Sarah,  the  patriarch's  old  wife.  He  discusses 
with  him  the  case  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah;  informing 
him  that  he  was  on  his  way  thither  to  see  if  the  reports  he 
had  heard  of  their  wickedness  were  correct. 


284  THE  POUR  TYPES  OP  [lECT. 

The  legends  of  Isaac  and  Jacob  are  equally  explicit  and 
compromising  to  the  god  they  praise.  They  describe 
Jacob's  family  as  idolaters,  and  Jacob  himself  as  only 
gathering  their  idols  together  and  hiding  them  under  an 
oak  (Gen.  xxxv.  2 — 4)  when  he  approached  the  domain  of 
his  western  family  deity.  They  tell  a  story  of  the  cun- 
ning fellow  regularly  bargaining  with  Jehovah  to  take 
him  for  his  God  on  certain  conditions,  and  promising  a 
tithe  of  his  possessions  if  Jehovah  would  fulfil  his  part  of 
the  contract  (Gen.  xxviii.  20).  To  whom  the  tithes  were 
to  be  paid,  or  for  what  end,  is  not  stated;  but  this  mention 
of  an  arrangement  of  tithes  betrays  the  late  date  of  the 
history  in  which  the  story  occurs. 

It  was  not  until  the  Abrahamidse  came  in  contact  with  the 
civilization  of  Egypt  that  we  begin  to  see  any  tendency  of 
their  Jehovah  worship  to  rise  to  a  higher  intellectual  level. 
Moses — a  character  representing  the  New  Egyptian  phase 
of  Hebrew  (or  Hyksos  ?)  life — takes  one  great  step  in  ad- 
vance of  his  forerunners.  But  even  Moses  makes  no  claim 
of  sole  existence  for  his  nation's  deity ;  but  only  insists 
that  he  is  superior  to  all  other  gods ;  the  Jehovah  Elohim, 
Lord  of  lords,  and  God  of  gods. 

In  Exodus  XV.  11,  he  is  made  to  say,  ^Who  is  like  thee, 
O  Jehovah,  among  the  gods?'  He  is  always  represented 
as  speaking  to  Pharaoh  of  Jehovah  not  as  Supreme  Ruler 
of  heaven  and  earth,  but  as  the  God  of  the  Hebrews ;  and 
to  the  Hebrews,  ^I  am  Jehovah  thy  God,  who  brought 
thee  out  of  the  house  of  bondage ;  thou  shalt  have  no  other 
gods  beside  (or  before)  me.'  What  is  true  of  the  legends 
of  Moses  is  equally  true  of  those  of  his  successor.  In  the 
24th  chapter,  Joshua  is  made  to  urge  upon  the  people 
fidelity  to  Jehovah,  not  at  all  on  the  ground  of  an  ex- 
alted Monotheism,  but  because  it  would  be  the  blackest 
ingratitude  in  them  not  to  prefer  the  God  who  had  heaped 
such  favours  upon  them  to  all  other  deities.  The  sub- 
sequent records  of  the  nation,  as  far  as  they  can  be  con- 
sidered historical,  become  a  monstrous  paradox  in  psycho- 
logical research  if  we  suppose  that  there  existed  at  that 
time  in  the  Hebrew  mind  any  idea  of  one  true  God  such  as 
we  possess. 

Tn  fine,  these  records  are  full  of  charges  against  them  of 
infidelity  to  Jehovah  but  do  not  contain  one  single  charge 


X.]  RELIGIOUS   WORSHIP.  285 

against  them  of  Atheism  on  that  account.  No  wonder ! 
Do  these  records  ever  describe  Jehovah  in  language  such 
as  a  modern  civilized  thinker  would  dare  to  use  ?  On  the 
contrary,  they  tell  us  that  Jehovah  said  to  Moses  :  Let 
them  make  me  a  sanctuary  that  I  may  dwell  among  them 
(Exod.  XXV.  8j  21,  22).  Put  the  cover  on  the  ark,  and 
there  will  I  talk  to  thee.  And  Jehovah  spake  with 
Moses  face  to  face  as  a  man  with  his  friend  (Exod.  xxxiii. 
9,  11).  And  Jehovah  said,  I  will  put  thee  in  a  cleft  of 
the  rock,  and  will  cover  thee  with  my  hand,  while  I  pass 
by,  and  thou  shalt  see  my  back  parts  (Exod.  xxxiii.  21 — 
24).  Moses  is  described  as  piquing  the  amour  jprojpre  of 
the  Hebrews,  by  telling  them  how  it  was  reported  among 
the  surrounding  nations  that  Jehovah  was  their  God  and 
was  seen  by  them  face  to  face  (Numb.  xiv.  14).  He  is  de- 
scribed as  pleading  with  Jehovah  when  very  angry,  and 
nobly  offering  himself  as  a  victim  to  his  wrath,  and  thus 
gaining  a  respite  and  commutation  of  their  punishment ; 
which,  however,  involved  an  entire  change  of  the  whole 
programme  of  the  Exodus,  a  change  of  base  for  their 
military  operations,  and  the  postponement  of  their  invasion 
of  Palestine  for  the  mystic  number  of  40  years. 

Surely  all  this  is  merely  a  slight  modification  of  those  far 
more  ancient  and  semi- savage  ideas  of  deity  which  ap- 
pear in  the  legends  of  the  creation  and  of  the  flood,  where 
Jehovah  is  said  to  make  woman  out  of  a  rib  of  man; 
to  take  Noah  and  '  shut  him  into  the  ark ;  ■*  '  to  smell  a 
sweet  savour  '  when  Noah  liberated  made  his  first  sacrifice; 
to  invent  the  rainbow ;  and  to  promise  no  more  '  to  curse 
the  ground  for  man's  sake.' 

But  time  went  on.  The  wars  of  settlement,  the  civil 
feuds  of  rival  judges,  came  to  an  end.  The  poet  warrior 
and  the  regal  philosopher  sat  in  turn  upon  the  throne  of 
Zion.  Peace  bore  its  proper  fruit ;  commerce  enlarged  the 
native  genius  of  the  Jew.  Priesthoods  devised  grand 
ceremonials.  The  discussion  of  false  mysteries  sharpened 
the  souFs  perception  of  the  true,  as  alchemy  in  our  day 
led  on  to  chemistry.  Luxury  bred  vice,  and  the  miseries 
of  despotism  generated  a  reactionary  patriotism.  The 
school  of  the  sacrificers  found  itself  confronted  by  the 
school  of  the  sacrificed.  Prophets  arose  to  denounce 
the  priest,  and  die  for  it.     But  as  they  died,  the  heavens 


286  THE  FOUR  TYPES  OF  [lECT. 

opened,  and  they  caught  those  visions  of  the  one  true 
God  which  were  to  become  the  hving  realities  of  after 
ages.  Calamities  crushed  in  upon  the  little  remnant  of 
that  kingdom  which  David  founded,  and  Solomon  illumin- 
ated with  his  taste  and  wisdom,  idolater  and  sensualist  as 
he  was.  The  poor  '  favoured  people '  were  meal  between 
the  millstones  of  Egypt  and  Babylon  ground  to  the  finest 
flour.  Their  anthropomorphic  deity  vanished  like  a  power- 
less, mocking  spectre  before  the  irresistible  wind  raised 
by  migrating  nations.  But  in  its  place  arose  the  sun  in  a 
sky  which  if  not  clear  was  hot  and  bright.  The  abstract 
idea  of  God  as  a  unit,  an  Infinite  one,  on  whose  strong 
arm  Nature  the  mother  and  Man  her  baby  child  could 
always  lean  with  confidence  and  ever-springing  hope — of 
God  the  sole  creator,  sole  sustainer,  sole  judge  and  exe- 
cutioner of  justice — penetrated  that  broken  mass  of 
Hebrew  people  as  the  alkaline  waters  of  the  drainage  of 
the  rain  penetrate  disturbed  and  fractured  regions  of  the 
eartVs  crust,  permeating  the  entire  substance,  metamor- 
phosing, crystallizing  and  charging  it  with  veins  of  the 
precious  metals. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  see  that  the  God  of  the  priests 
and  the  God  of  the  prophets  of  Israel — and  the  same  is 
true  in  our  day — were  two  very  different  deities  ;  the 
embodiment  of  two  very  different  classes  of  ideas.  '  Let 
any  one,  (says  Greg)  '  compare  the  partial,  unstable,  re- 
vengeful, and  deceitful  God  of  Exodus  and  Numbers  with 
the  sublime  and  unique  Deity  of  Job  and  the  nobler 
Psalms ;  or  even  the  God  of  Ezekiel  and  Daniel  with  the 
God  of  Isaiah ;  and  he  can  scarcely  fail  to  admit  that  the 
conception  of  the  one  living  and  true  God  was  a  plant  of 
slow  and  gradvial  growth  in  the  Hebrew  mind,  and  was 
due — not  to  Moses,  the  patriarchs,  or  the  priests,  but  to 
the  superiority  of  individual  minds  at  various  periods  of 
their  history. ■"  This  plant  of  Aryan  growth  was  first 
planted  in  the  mountains  of  Judea  when  Solomon,  estab- 
lishing his  kingdom  '  from  the  great  River  Euphrates 
to  the  Western  Sea,^  brought  his  people  into  contact  with 
the  pure  Zoroastrian  monotheism  of  the  Persian  plateau  ; 
and  it  came  to  flower  when  several  centuries  afterwards 
,  the  chosen  people '  were  banished  from  their  native  hills 
to  hang    their   harps    upon   the  willows   of  Babylon;    er 


X.]  SELiaiOUS   WORSHIP.  287 

rather,  we  may  say,  were  sent  to  school,  tribe  after  tribe, 
back  to  the  lands  where  their  original  ancestors  first  drew 
the  breath  of  life. 

It  was  Solomon  who  first  learned  how  to  say  'Behold,  the 
heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain  thee,  how  much  less  this 
house  which  I  have  built  ?  '  *  '  The  eyes  of  Jehovah  are 
everywhere,  beholding  the  evil  and  the  good/  f 

It  was  no  priest  or  Levite  of  the  temple  service,  but 
David  the  young  shepherd  poet,  or  more  likely  yet,  some 
later  prophet  whose  verses  equally  dear  to  the  hearts  of 
all  humanity  came  to  be  sung  under  that  all  overshadow- 
ing name,  who  chanted — 'Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy 
spirit,  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence  ?  '  '  Thou 
coverest  thyself  with  light  as  with  a  garment;  thou  art 
clothed  with  honour  and  majesty/  'Jehovah  !  who  shall 
abide  in  thy  tent  ?  who  shall  dwell  on  thy  sacred  tumulus  ? 
He  that  walketh  uprightly,  and  worketh  righteousness, 
and  speaketh  the  truth  heartily.  For  the  word  of  Je- 
hovah is  right,  and  all  his  works  are  done  in  truth.' 
*  He  loveth  righteousness  and  judgment.  Lying  lips  are 
his  abomination.  But  true  dealers  are  his  delight.'  '  The 
counsel  of  Jehovah  standeth  for  ever.'  '  Thou  desirest 
not  sacrifice,  else  would  I  give  it.  Thou  delightest  not  in 
bui-nt-olFering.'  '  The  world  is  mine  and  the  fulness 
thereof.  Will  I  eat  the  flesh  of  bulls,  and  drink  the  blood 
of  goats  ?  If  I  were  hungry  would  I  tell  thee  ?  Ofier  unto 
God  thanksgiving.'  % 

It  was  no  Hebrew  priest  or  Levite,  but  some  Idumean 
sheikh  of  the  eastern  desert,  who  lived  it  would  seem  from 
the  best  philological  criticism  long  after  the  days  of  Solo- 
mon, who  said  all  those  fine  things  in  the  Book  of  Job, 
like  '  Lo,  he  goeth  by  me,  but  I  perceive  him  not.'  '  How 
should  a  man  be  just  with  God  ?  he  cannot  answer  him  for 
one  of  a  thousand.  For  he  is  not  man,  as  I  am,  that  we  should 
come  together  in  judgment.  Shall  a  man  be  more  pure 
than  his  Maker  ?  '  || 

The  fine  words  which  are  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  first 

1  Kings  Vlll.    Cf.  Svvaaai  it  cru  Travroa  dicoviiv  'Avspi  Ki}Sofikv(fi.    Ilisd, 

16.  614. 

t  PrOV.  XV.    Cf.  Btoi  TO.  TTcivTa  "laaaiv.      Odys.    4.  379. 

X  Psalms  xxxiii.,  1.,  li.,  civ.,  cxxxix.  ;   Prov.  xv. 

II  Job  ix.,  xi. 


288  THE    POUR   TYPES    OP  [lECT. 

of  the  prophets,  the  reputed  teacher  of  David  '  The 
strength  of  Israel  will  not  lie,  nor  repent,  for  he  is  not  a 
man  to  repent,^  *  give  us  still  the  narrow  idea  of  a  national 
god,  and  not  of  the  universal  and  only  God  of  the  later 
prophets,  such  as  was  known  to  the  author  of  the  Book 
of  Ecclesiastes,  who  threw  the  same  idea  into  a  much 
larger  mould  :  '  I  know  that  whatsoever  God  doeth  shall 
be  for  ever;  nothing  can  be  put  to  it  nor  nothing  taken 
from  it/  t 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  desolations  of  Israel  by  the 
hordes  of  Mesopotamia  that  the  greatest  of  the  prophets 
expressed  the  Zoroastrian  faith  iu  those  sublime  words, 
*  To  what  purpose  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices  unto 
me  ?  saith  Jehovah/  J 

And  it  was  in  the  last  convulsions  of  national  extinction 
that  the  Prophet  Micah  proposed  and  answered  the 
same  awful  question  in  the  still  sublimer  words : 
'  Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  Jehovah,  and  bow  myself 
before  the  Highest  God  ?  With  burnt- offerings,  calves  of 
a  year  old  ?  Will  he  be  pleased  with  thousands  of  rams, 
or  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil  ?  Shall  I  give  my  firstborn 
for  my  transgression  ;  the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of 
my  soul  ?  He  hath  showed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good. 
And  what  doth  Jehovah  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly, 
to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  before  thy  God ! '  \\ 

Thy  God  !  The  cycle  is  complete.  The  God  of  Abraham 
had  become  the  God  of  the  ten  tribes ;  the  God  of  Israel  had 
grown  to  be  the  God  of  all ;  and  now  this  God  of  mankind 
is  about  to  come  incarnate  to  the  individual  soul  to  claim 
his  last  and  highest  throne  of  all. 

It  was  the  propagation  of  these  splendid  conceptions  of 
deity  subsequent  to  the  Babylonian  captivity,  and  after 
they  had  come  under  the  Zoroastrian  influence  of  Persia, 
which  cured  the  J  ews  of  infidelity  to  Jehovah,  made  them 
self-sacrificing  Unitarians  to  the  end  of  time,  and  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  founding  of  the  Christian  Church. 
And  we  are  probably  to  explain  the  rapid  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity at  the  outset  by  the  wide  diffusion  of  Jewish  ideas 
previous  to  the  birth  of  Christ  among  the  sober-minded 
Gentiles  of  Western   Asia  and  the  Roman  empire.      But 

*  1  Sam.  XV.        f  Eccl.  iii.        %  Isaiah  i.        ||  Micah  vi. 


r.]  EELiaious  WORSHIP.  289 

there  resulted  thence  a  strange  mixture  of  monotheism 
with  polytheism  before  the  Christian  Era,  corresponding 
to  the  mixture  of  Christianity  with  every  form  of  local 
heathenism  which  happened  afterwards. 

Professor  Sophocles  has  lately  published  an  ancient 
epitaph,  dug  up  recently  by  a  seeker  for  treasures  of  another 
sort,  near  the  little  town  of  Zerbhokhia  in  Magnesia.  I 
will   give  you  his  translation  of  it.* 

'  No  other  corpse,  whether  of  a  man  or  of  a  woman,  is 
permitted  to  be  deposited  in  this  vault.  And  if  any  one 
shall  recklessly  dare  to  open  it,  he  will  anger  the  most 
great,  the  King,  the  Almighty  Maker  of  all  things ;  and 
all  the  gods,  and  goddesses,  and  demigods,  and  the  lady 
queen  herself.  For  the  depositing  of  any  other  corpse  with 
these  is  forbidden  once  for  all.' 

We  could  not  have  a  better  description  than  this 
epitaph  affords  us  of  that  mixed  or  primitive  theism  which 
pervades  the  older  Hebrew  or  Mosaic  Scriptures,  and 
which  gave  place  to  a  gi-ander  and  purer  monotheism 
among  the  prophets  of  a  later  age. 

The  date  of  the  beginning  of  this  change  then  would  be 
about  1000  years  before  Christ.  We  find  in  the  Hindu 
Scriptures  of  that  date  evidences  of  a  similar  growth  of 
the  religious  mind.  '  In  the  oldest  portions  of  the  hymns 
[of  the  Eig  Veda,  the  most  ancient  of  the  Sanscrit  books] 
we  discover,'  says  Mr  Muir,  the  latest  and  best  English 
writer  on  this  subject,  'few  traces  of  any  such  abstract 
conceptions  of  the  Deity.  They  disclose  a  much  more 
primitive  stage  of  religious  belief.  They  are  the  produc- 
tions of  simple  men,  who,  under  the  influence  of  the  most 
impressive  phenomena  of  nature,  saw  everywhere  the 
presence  and  agency  of  divine  powers,  who  imagined  that 
each  of  the  great  provinces  of  the  universe  was  directed 
and  animated  by  its  own  separate  deity,  and  who  had  not 
yet  risen  to  a  clear  idea  of  one  Supreme  Creator  and 
governor  of  all  things.'  f 

The  hymns  of  the  Rig  Veda  are  hymns  to  Agni  the  god 
of  Fire,  Surya  the  god  of  the  Sun,  Indra  the  god  of  Storms, 
addressed  each  under  a  variety  of  names,  and  strangely 
mixed  up  together,  and  sometimes  actually  identified  with 

•  Journ.  R.  Asiat.  Soc,  New  Series,  i.  2,  p.  339. 

t  Proc.  Araer.  Acad.  p.  17,  1864. 

19 


290  THE  FOUR  TYPES  OP  [lECT. 

one  another.  But,  as  Muir  and  others  have  shown,  there 
are  strains  in  these  ancient  hymns  which  seem  to  come  from 
some  inner  sanctuary,  revealing  a  conception  of  divinity 
more  spiritual  and  universal  than  the  general  tenour  of  the 
hymns.  The  grades  of  this  spiritualism  involved  in  the 
general  materialism  of  the  Vedic  hymns  are  various.  The 
reader  can,  as  it  were,  watch  the  expansion  of  the  poetic 
idea.  Varuna  is  described  as  dwelling  in  a  palace  of  a 
thousand  columns,  and  a  thousand  doors,*  before  he  is 
described  as  dwelling  in  all  woi'lds,  as  sovereign  ruler, 
possessed  of  illimitable  resources,  meting  out,  creating, 
and  upholding  the  heavens  and  the  earth.f  The  different 
earliest  deities  had  their  different  admirers  and  special 
devotees.  Each  deity  was  praised  in  strains  as  exalted  as 
the  capacity  of  the  worshipper,  and  as  the  growth  of  the 
religious  ideas  of  his  age.  Hence,  as  the  notions  of  space 
and  time  became  enlarged,  and  the  powers  of  abstract 
thought  were  cultivated,  the  pantheon  swelled  to  colossal 
proportions ;  and  each  separate  deity  belonging  to  it  be- 
came to  his  own  worshippers  the  infinite  and  eternal  God 
of  gods  ;  while  yet  retaining  his  own  distinctive  name  and 
some  relics  of  his  original,  local,  and  specific  character. 

The  resemblance  between  the  poetic  imagery  of  the 
Hebrew  and  Hindu  Scriptures  of  that  ancient  date  is 
strikingly  in  harmony  with  the  ethnological  derivation  of 
the  Abrahamidse  from  the  land  of  Brahma.  The  Hebrew 
poet  sings  :  '  The  eyes  of  Jehovah  are  in  every  place  be- 
holding the  evil  and  the  good.'  The  Yedic  poet  sings : 
'  Varuna,  the  mighty  ruler  of  the  worlds,  sees  as  if  close  at 
hand.^  The  Hebrew  :  '  Whither  can  I  flee  from  thy  pre- 
sance  ?  If  I  ascend  into  heaven,  thou  art  there  !  If  I 
make  my  bed  in  the  grave,  thou  art  there  !  If  I  take  the 
wings  of  the  morning,  and  fly  into  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  sea,  even  there  will  thy  right  hand  uphold  me/ — is 
echoed  by  the  Sanscrit :  '  The  earth  belongs  to  Varuna 
the  King,  and  the  mighty  sky  whose  ends  are  far  away; 
the  seas  are  his  loins,  though  he  lives  in  the  smallest  pool ; 
let  one  flee  beyond  the  furthest  skies,  he  should  not  escape 
Varuna  the  King,  whose  messengers  descend  from  heaven 

♦  Rig  Veda,  ii.  41.  5  ;  v.  62.  6 ;  vii.  88.  5. 

t  Ibid.  iv.  42.  3,  4 ;  vi.  70. 1 ;  vii.  86.  1 ;  87.  5,  6;  viii.  41.  4,  5.  10; 
48.1. 


X.]  RELIGIOUS    WORSHIP.  291 

and  thousand-eyed  traverse  the  earth/  There  is  in  the 
Hebrew  poems  a  sad,  sweet,  noble  simphcity  and  intense 
spiritual  personality,  which  is  not  so  perceptible  in  their 
Indian  contemporaries.  There  is  also  in  them  an  absence 
of  gross  mistakes  and  exaggerations  which  place  them 
on  an  eminence  unapproachable  by  the  admirers  of  their 
Sanscrit  rivals ;  yet  the  common  propriety  which  both 
these  holy  literatures  have  in  all  the  essential  elements  of 
the  divine  idea  is  unmistakable. 

This  is  especially  true  of  the  later  hymns  of  the  Rig 
Veda,  and  of  the  hymns  of  the  Atharva  Veda,  supposed  to 
have  been  not  much,  if  any,  less  ancient.  It  is  in  these 
that  we  begin  to  find  those  grand  titles  :  Visva  Ka  man 
'  the  universal  architect,'  and  Prajapati  '  lord  of  crea- 
tures ; '  but  we  notice  that  they  are  applied  stiU  to  special 
deities :  Indra,  Savitr,  Rudra,  Soma,  Vishnu,  or  Varuna. 
In  the  I21st  hymn  of  the  Rig  Veda,  for  example,  the  deity 
is  celebrated  (under  the  name  Hiranyagarbha)  as  'arisen 
in  the  beginning ;  only  lord  of  all ;  upholder  of  heavens 
and  earth  ;  giver  of  life  and  breath ;  god  of  all  gods,  and 
the  animating  principle  of  their  existence.* 

I  need  not  follow  this  subject  further.  I  confess  I  do 
not  at  all  agree  with  the  common  explanations  of  the  Hindu 
mythology,  as  published  by  Muir,  Max  Miiller,  and  other 
Sanscrit  scholars.  Their  theories  seem  to  me  to  have  no 
system.  I  think  it  is  because  they  have  no  basis.  They 
have  not  yet  struck  the  key-note.  In  this  course  of  lectures 
I  have  been  gradually  preparing  your  minds  for  a  view  of 
the  subject,  which  I  think  may  explain  most  of  the  diffi- 
culties which  Sanscrit  mythologists  confess  that  they  en- 
counter. This  is  my  tenth  lecture.  I  have  still  one  more 
to  deliver.  I  have  reserved  the  theme  to  which  I  have 
given  most  attention  to  the  last.f  I  do  not  wish  to  scare  you 
with  a  deluge  of  unintelligible  words.  I  think  I  can  repay 
your  patience  with  a  solid  addition  to  your  knowledge.  I 
think  I  can  show  you  an  order  reigning  over  the  apparent 
chaos  of  ideas  respecting  the  gods  in  olden  times.  I  think 
I  can  put  into  your  hands  the  right  key  to  the  door  — the 
safe  clue  for  the  labjTinth.  The  ancient  poets  were  not 
mad-men;  the  old  philosophers  were  not  all  fools.     They 

•  Sanscrit  Texts,  iv.  13  H.     Muir,  p.  344!. 

t  The  lecture  on  Arkism  has  been  omitted  in  this  edition. 


292  THE    FOUR   TYPES    OP  [lECT. 

could  distinguish  sense  from  nonsense  as  well  as  we  — 
thongli  not  as  well  as  we.  Classical  scholars  have  been 
tormented  by  the  inconsistent  and  contradictory  family- 
relations  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  gods,  father,  brother 
and  son  being  mixed  up  together.  Sanscrit  scholars  are 
equally  at  a  loss  to  comprehend  why  Bramanas-pati  should 
be  called  in  one  hymn  of  the  Rig  Veda  '  the  father  of  the 
gods,^  *  and  in  another  '  the  son  of  Tvashtr,  lord  of  all.'  f 
Now  I  think  that  it  is  only  in  the  theory  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  later  monotheisms  and  polytheisms  out  of  the 
older  ancestral  worships  and  fetich- worship  of  primeval 
times  that  we  can  find  our  explanation  of  these  and  similar 
mj'thological  absurdities.  To  the  ancient  bard  initiated  in 
the  Arkite  mysteries  they  were  no  absurdities.  What  was 
fetich  to  the  vulgar  crowd  outside  was  Jdstory  and  poetry  to 
the  priest  within.  And  so  it  may  become  to  us.  But  we  must 
comprehend  the  symbols.  Of  these  I  will  speak  at  large 
when  next  we  meet,  and  you  will  permit  me  to  devote  an 
entire  evening  to  them ;  for  they  cover  the  whole  ground 
of  human  life  and  interpenetrate  every  department  of  na- 
tural history. 

For  this  evening  I  have  but  one  more  word  to  add.  I 
have  spoken  of  three  types  of  religious  ideas  :  1.  Ancestral 
worship ;  2.  Fetich  worship ;  3.  Polytheism  and  Mono- 
theism. 

IV.  The  highest  type  of  the  religious  idea  is  Pantheism. 
It  is  the  philosophic  idea  of  God.  It  is  the  idea  which 
science  takes  of  the  divine.  Science,  you  know,  is  the  know- 
ledge of  the  logical  imderstanding ;  not  the  instinctive 
siglit  of  the  pure  reason — not  the  deep  faith  of  the  loving 
imagination.  Science  is  essentially  irreligious,  that  is, 
unworshipping.  Science  looks  down  upon  things — not  up 
to  them.  Science  analyzes,  dissects,  discusses  all  things; 
God  among  the  rest :  or  tries  to  do  so ;  it  is  its  vocation, 
its  nature,  its  duty.  Do  not  blame  it.  Do  not  feel  a 
horror  at  it,  as  the  Italians  shuddered  at  good  old  Vasari, 
with  his  medical  fez,  loose  gown,  and  scalpel.  Vasari 
with  his  scalpel  looked  like  a  vampire  hanging  over  that 
dead  body.  But  there  was  no  demoniac  fury  in  the  old 
man's  eyes ;  no — there  was  a  holy  zeal  burning  in  them   to 

•  Muir,  p.  344.    R.  V.  ii.  26.  3.  t  R.  V.  ii.  23.  17. 


X.]  RELIGIOUS   WORSHIP.  293 

discover  tte  laws  of  the  anatomy  of  the  dead  for  the  good 
of  the  Hving.  Science  is  no  vampire  of  the  night,  flap- 
ping its  wings  over  our  sleeping  religion,  soothing  its 
slumbers,  and  sucking  its  blood.  God  forbid  the  thought. 
Every  part  of  man  must  do  its  duty;  and  science  is  the 
work  of  man^s  logical  understanding.  Now,  the  investiga- 
tion of  God  by  man's  understanding  has  always  resulted  in 
some  theory  of  Pantheism. 

Whether  philosophers  took  Fetichism  as  their  stand- 
point, or  whether  they  took  Ancestor-worship  as  their 
starting-point,  they  arrived  at  Pantheism.  The  worship 
of  the  father  on  earth  developes  itself  into  the  worship  of 
the  father  in  heaven.  Then  the  attributes  of  the  personal 
god  become  generalized,  refined,  distributed,  dissipated, 
and  identified  with  the  universe.  When  ancient  sages 
came  to  believe  in  the  absolute  goodness,  justice,  love,  and 
wisdom  of  deity,  or  providence,  they  fell  into  that  peace 
which  needed  nothing,  feared  nothing,  and  therefore  wor- 
shipped nothing.  Nothing  to  blame,  nothing  to  praise, 
the  perfect  whole  became  one  great  divinity.  It  was  so  in 
Magadha  and  Benares ;  it  is  so  in  Concord  and  Boston. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  worship  of  the  fetich  developed 
itself  into  the  elemental  worship  of  the  ancients,  and  into 
the  thunder-  and  war-providence  worship  of  orthodox 
Christianity.  If  the  progress  of  science  has  explained 
away  the  miracles,  where  is  the  miracle-maker?  Dis- 
tributed throughout  his  universe.  All  nature  becomes  a 
miracle.     '  In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.'' 

But  universal  Pantheism  is  impossible.  All  the  common 
instincts  of  man  oppose  his  progress  in  that  dii'ection. 
Man  also  is  a  trinity  :  he  is  heart,  imagination,  under- 
standing, in  one.  His  God  must  therefore  always  be  per- 
sonal and  anthropomorphic  as  well  as  infinite  :  personal — 
to  be  beloved ;  anthropomorphic — to  be  imagined ;  and 
infinite — to  be  confided  in.  The  Incarnation  of  Jesus  was 
a  reaction  of  the  human  heart  against  the  cold  spaciousness 
of  Pantheism.  The  Assumption  of  Jesus  was  a  reaction  of 
the  imagination  against  the  dark  vagueness  of  Pantheism. 
So  long  as  man  feels  himself  a  child  he  will  climb  up  upon 
the  knees  of  the  Father  who  is  in  heaven ;  or  nestle  to  the 
bosom  of  Abraham.  So  long  as  woman  feels  herself  op- 
pressed and  afflicted  she  will  idolize  a  well-defined  divinity. 


294  THE    FOUR   TYPES   OP   EELIQIOUS    WORSHIP. 

Joy  and  sorrow  make  common  cause  against  the  approach 
of  Pantheism.  Youth  and  women — three  quarters  of  the 
human  race — are  idolaters  by  natural  necessity.  Let  then 
the  progress  of  science — the  deductions  of  the  logical  un- 
derstanding— clear  away  from  men's  eyes  the  errors  of  the 
past,  and  lead  them  into  that  liberty  of  spirit  which  is  due 
to  Christianity,  '  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  made  his 
people  free/ — ^it  will  be  none  the  less  a  fact  that  'the  things 
of  the  Spirit  are  spiritually  discerned.'  There  are  things 
that  science  cannot  grasp,  some  things  that  lie  beyond  the 
scope  of  logic  ;  and  it  will  be  as  true  in  every  age  as  it 
was  when  the  blessed  Master  took  a  little  child  and  set  him 
in  the  midst  of  them,  that — 'many  things  are  hidden  from 
the  wise  and  prudent  which  are  revealed  unto  babes. 


LECTURE   XL 

THE  POSSIBLE  IN  DESTENT. 

Theke  are  but  two  great  schools  of  philosophy,  the 
Optimist  and  the  Pessimist. 

The  one  teaches  that  the  world  was  made  to  be  a 
success  —  a  distinguished  success. 

The  other  teaches  that  the  world  made  itself,  and  is 
bound  to  be  a  failure — a  flagrant  and  miserable  failure. 

Can  these  schools  claim  co-ordinate  authority?  Can 
such  opposite  philosophies  be  avouched  of  equal  value  ? 
Impossible.  The  senate-chamber  and  the  mad-house, 
a  ball-room  and  a  hospital-ward,  could  not  inspire  spec- 
tators with  more  contrary  sentiments. 

Who  are  they  who  compose  these  schools  ? 

Pessimists  are  made  of  thinkers  who  are  sick  at 
heart  —  the  discontented,  the  discouraged,  and  the  dis- 
consolate ;  hopers  who  have  lost  hope  in  losing  youth, 
fortune,  ambition,  affection,  zest  in  work ;  dreamers  of 
the  absolute,  who  are  tired  of  wandering  blindly  among 
truths  undemonstrable,  and  vices  irremediable ;  men 
who  have  lost  themselves  in  scenes  of  misery  not  to  be 
relieved  by  charity  ;  men  shipwrecked  on  a  monotonous 
continent  of  ignorance,  gloomy  with  fogs  impenetrable 
to  the  rays  of  science ;  men  of  exceptional  sensibilities ; 
men  of  diseased,  abnormal  tenderness  of  spirit;  men 
whose  eyeballs  are  avenues  for  the  approach  of  pain, 
whose  hearts  are  overswollen  with  excessive  sympa- 
thies ;  men  crushed  by  the  load  of  the  sins  of  an  unre- 
deemed world. 

Can  such  as  these  be  philosophers,  teachers,  proph- 
ets ?  These  be  no  prophets.  These  have  never  heard 
the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  "  Make  His 
paths  straight  before  Him !  " 


296  THE   POSSIBLE   IN   DESTINY.  [LECT. 

Pessimism  is  the  doctrine  of  the  school  of  the  lost 
prophets. 

Its  image  and  symbol  is  that  gaunt  figure  perambu- 
lating the  battlements  of  the  doomed  city,  crying  b}'- 
day  and  by  night :  "  Woe  !  Woe  to  Jerusalem !  "  and 
struck  dead  by  the  flying  stone  from  the  Roman 
engines,  with  the  cry  in  his  mouth:  "Woe!  Woe  to 
myself!" 

But  the  school  of  the  Optimists  is  in  the  grove  of 
beauty  and  in  the  portico  of  health;  where  the  sun 
shines  and  the  birds  carol ;  whither  the  sounds  of  the 
anvil  and  the  loom  penetrate  from  the  city,  and  the 
lowing  of  kine  and  bleat  of  flocks  from  the  pasture  and 
ploughed  field. 

Optimism  weighs  the  sum  of  good  against  the  sum  of 
evil  and  believes  in  eternal  providence ;  measures  the 
misery  of  life  and  finds  it  in  the  proportion  of  the  lees 
to  the  wine ;  estimates  knowledge  b}'  its  commonplace 
usefulness,  and  counts  the  virtues  by  the  number  of 
honest  faces  in  a  crowd. 

Optimism  is  the  practical  prose  side  of  philosophy, 
on  which  is  written  the  legend  of  patience,  contentment, 
hard  work,  and  holy  love  for  man  and  beast ;  life  with 
many  a  merry  passage  for  the  most  unfortunate,  and 
death,  the  angel,  the  Christ,  releaser  of  the  spirits  for 
a  season  in  prison. 

To  both  these  opposing  schools  "  The  World  "  means 
man  — mankind.  The  rest  of  the  world  is  merely  the 
addenda.  Respecting  man  only  are  they  opposed. 
They  agree  that  the  animal,  vegetable,  mineral,  and 
physical  phenomena  of  the  universe  are  all  right.  Only 
man  is  badly  treated,  thinks  the  Pessimist.  INIan  also 
its  well  arranged,  thinks  the  Optimist.  The  Pessimist 
is  inconsequent,  the  Optimist  is  logical.  In  the  school 
of  Pessimism  one  virtually  sits  in  the  seat  of  the 
scorner. 

The  destiny  of  all  things  is  to  attain  the  possible  :  for 
the  world  at  large,  the  possible  for  it ;  for  mankind, 
the  possible  for  it ;  for  man  in  particular,  the  possible 
for  him. 

How  do  we  know  this  ?     We  do  not  know  it.     We 


XI.]  THE   POSSIBLE  IN  DESTINY.  297 

onij  believe  it,  are  sure  of  it,  rely  upon  it.  It  is  a 
reasonable  conclusion  from  all  we  know,  and  from  all 
we  see  going  on  around  us. 

Science  is  the  definition  of  the  possible.  Science  is 
knowledge  of  relationships  determined  by  surrounding 
circumstances ;  of  the  knowledge  of  exhibitions  of 
forces  counteracting  and  directing  each  other  within  a 
bounded  arena  overlooked  by  spectators.  Each  force 
has  its  possibilities  of  scope,  direction  and  intensity, 
resulting  in  established  possibilities  of  form,  color,  size, 
quantities  and  qualities,  all  and  singly  predetermined 
and  postdetermined  by  a  common  law. 

Life  is  the  struggle  from  within  outward  to  accom- 
plish all  that  is  possible  by  and  for  the  living  thing. 
Destiny  is  its  success. 

Is  there  a  destiny  of  failure  ?  Certainly  not.  Fail- 
ure is  merely  failure  ;  a  check  from  the  surrounding 
success.  What  one  gains  another  loses ;  what  one  loses 
another  gains.  Each  attains  its  own  possible,  though 
not  another's.  There  are  eddies  in  all  rivers.  While 
the  whole  succeeds  perfectly,  parts  succeed  only  par- 
tially. The  current  shoots  ahead,  the  eddies  lag ;  but 
the  whole  river  reaches  the  sea,  except  what  rises  into 
the  sky. 

What  is  possible?  Theologians  say  that  all  things 
are  possible  with  God  ;  but  it  is  precisely  with  God 
that  all  is  not  possible ;  for  God  is  the  embodiment,  the 
embodier  of  law;  and  law  is  another  word  for  cor- 
relation and  interlimitation.  Law  is  both  the  assertion 
and  denial  of  possibilities. 

Two  and  two  cannot  make  five ;  a  body  cannot  be 
hard  and  soft,  hot  and  cold,  active  and  passive,  acid 
and  alkali  at  the  same  moment  to  its  vis-d-vis.  One 
cannot  be  before  another,  and  yet  behind  it ;  which  is 
only  saying  over  again  that  order  must  reign,  and 
eddies  be  in  all  rivers  bounded  by  irregular  shores. 
All  creatures  resemble  rivers  bounded  by  irregular 
shores ;  and  the  possible  for  them  —  and  theii  destiny 
to  accomplish  the  possible  —  is  made  up  of  the  current 
and  the  eddies. 

Some  of  the  relationships  which  limit  the  possible 


298  THE   POSSIBLE   I^   DESTINY.  [LECT. 

and  predict  destiny  seem  to  be  fixed  and  universal  ; 
while  others  are  evidently  slight,  fleeting,  and  momen- 
tarily influential,  or,  as  we  call  them,  accidental.  But 
it  cannot  be  that  even  the  vastest  relationships  of  the 
universe  are  really  fixed  and  universal.  They  onl}'- 
seem  so  to  us  babes  of  time  and  place.  Therefore, 
while  the  destiny  of  man  seems  unchangeably  good  to 
the  Optimist,  and  fixedly  bad  to  the  Pessimist,  it  is 
running  a  course,  describing  an  orbit,  unrolling  a  life 
of  its  own  too  large  and  long  and  too  distant  (in  past 
and  future)  from  our  momentary  stand-point  of  obser- 
vation to  be  studied  by  us  according  to  the  ordinary 
canons  of  human  investigation. 

The  destiny  of  every  created  thing  is  necessarily 
determined  for  it  by  the  relations  which  exist  between 
the  qualities  of  its  own  constitution  and  the  qualities 
which  characterize  created  things  around  it.  To  know 
its  destiny,  we  must  know  first  what  it  is,  and  secondly 
what  they  are. 

Take  this  crystal  and  drop  it  into  the  sea.  What 
becomes  of  it  ?  That  will  depend :  1,  upon  whether  it 
be  a  crystal  of  quartz,  or  of  feldspar,  or  of  calcite,  or 
of  common  salt ;  2,  upon  where  in  the  sea  you  drop  it ; 
on  what  shore  ;  swept  by  what  current ;  in  the  tropics 
or  near  the  pole.  In  one  case,  it  will  resist  solution  and 
be  covered  up  where  you  drop  it,  or  be  swept  away  to 
be  deposited  in  the  distance ;  in  another  case,  it  will  be 
dissolved  and  mixed  with  the  tides  and  circumnavigate 
the  globe ;  enter  into  the  tissues  of  sc^iweeds  and  corals, 
or  become  part  of  the  tests  of  moUusks  or  bony  fibre  of 
fish. 

A  babe  is  born  into  the  constituent  mass  of  human 
society.  What  is  to  be  its  destiny?  Sa}^  first,  what 
are  its  inherited  qualities  of  soul  and  body ;  secondly, 
into  what  specially  constituted  zone  of  social  life  it  is 
dropped,  in  what  age  of  peace  or  war,  in  what  class  of 
luxur}^  or  sordid  penury,  in  the  city  or  in  the  fields,  in 
the  forest  or  in  the  desert,  among  the  mountains  or 
upon  the  plain,  amid  the  snows  and  scanty  daylight  of 
the  North  which  imprison  men  beneath  their  house- 
roofs,  or  where  perjjetual  warmth  and  abundant  fruit 
make  life  in  the  open  air  a  free  festival. 


XI.]  THE   POSSIBLE   IN  DESTDTST.  299 

The  key-note  of  modern  science  is  given  by  this  A- 
string  of  the  violin,  this  dominant  of  existence :  that 
every  created  thing,  whether  belonging  to  the  spiritual 
or  material  worlds,  is  acted  upon  by  and  reacts  upon  its 
surroundings  by  virtue  of  its  own  nature  and  theirs. 
The  result  is  its  destiny.  There  is  no  escape.  There 
is  no  intervention.  Given  the  first  two  terms  of  the 
equation,  the  third  follows. 

But  the  terms  are  complicated,  and  the  formulse  of 
resolution  numerous.  Substitution  after  substitution 
must  be  made  by  the  calculator  before  the  value  of  x 
appears.  He  is  dealing  with  such  a  multitude  of  fac- 
tors that  his  calculus  must  be  both  integral  and  differ- 
ential. Long//'s  multiply  on  the  page.  Perhaps  the 
value  of  X  never  appears.  That  is  not  the  fault  of 
nature  nor  of  science,  but  of  the  mathematician.  A  slip 
spoils  his  demonstration  but  has  no  effect  upon  the 
nature  of  thins^s.  Some  unrecotjnized  element  in  the 
problem  must  be  sought  for.  The  reagents  react  ahvays 
in  the  same  style,  whether  in  the  beaker-glass  of  Ber- 
zelius,  or  in  the  alembic  of  Paracelsus,  or  in  the  crucible 
of  the  old  mountebank  of  Somerset  County.  Nature  is 
no  observer  of  persons.  She  cares  not  who  is  looking 
on  and  does  her  duty.  This  is  the  astonishing  specta- 
cle of  destiny.  Xature  confers  no  D.D.'s,  calls  no  man 
sage  or  saint,  is  blind  to  the  existence  of  prophets,  deaf 
to  the  groans  of  nations,  smiles  at  the  suggestions  of 
her  pupils,  and  froAvns  at  the  absolution  of  priests. 
There  is  no  absolution.  The  universe  is  all  solution  and 
precipitation  —  re-solution  and  re-precipitation  —  with- 
out haste,  without  indecision,  unerring,  absolute,  inevi- 
table, normal,  beautiful  and  divine. 

In  this  despotism  which  the  nature  of  things  habit- 
ually, unceasingly,  inexorabl3%  both  benignantly  and 
pitilessly  exercises  over  all  created  things  the  Pagan 
and  the  Pessimist  see  fate  and  the  devil ;  the  Christian 
and  the  Optimist  see  God's  powerful  mind  and  benev- 
olent heart. 

That  is  the  essential  difference  between  the  two 
schools. 

But  there  are  Pessimists  concealed  in  the  school  of 


300  THE    rOSSlBLE   IN   DESTINY. 

Optimism,  pretenders,  eclectics,  wIkj  borrow  from  the 
text-books  of  its  adversary  to  warp  and  debase  tlieir 
own  profession.  When  the  sons  of  God  assemble  to 
worship,  Satans  appear  among  them,  point  to  the  case  of 
Job,  and  say :  All  then  is  not  good,  and  all  is  not  inevi- 
table. Destiny  may  be  thwarted  by  its  own  inventor; 
natural  consequences  may  be  averted  by  prayer,  fasting, 
and  alms ;  miracles  may  be  wrought  on  special  occa- 
sions; demons  maybe  unchained  from  the  Euphrates, 
and  science  may  be  rendered  uncertain  by  divine  or 
diabolic  interposition. 

No  Christian  can  be  a  true  Optimist  who  subscribes 
to  the  popular  belief  in  hell.  No  Optimist  can  be  a 
true  philosopher  who  subscribes  to  the  popular  belief  in 
miracles  and  prayer. 

Yet  hell  is  a  part  of  the  universe,  miracles  a  part  of 
its  phenomena,  and  prayer  the  privilege  of  life. 

These  mysteries  we  must  examine.  They  involve 
their  own  explanation  in  that  of  the:destiny  of  mankind. 
But  there  is  a  natural  order  to  every  investigation  ;  and 
to  discover  the  destiny  of  man  we  must  begin  by  distin- 
guishing the  whole  from  the  parts,  the  individual  from 
the  race.  We  must  also  distinguish  destiny  from  des- 
tination. We  must  learn  the  future  from  the  past,  and 
the  past  from  the  present.  And  we  must  bring  to  bear 
upon  the  subject  of  our  research  the  light  of  every 
department  of  physical  and  mental  science. 

This  is  our  task.  It  is  a  hard  one.  It  has  strained 
the  intellectual  sinews  of  the  greatest  thinkers.  It  has 
filled  the  libraries  of  the  world  with  treatises.  How 
can  it  be  accomplished  in  a  chapter  or  two  ? 


LECTURE  XII. 

THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN. 

When  a  great  subject  presents  itself  to  the  mind,  it 
is  as  when  the  countless  dove-clouds  of  Egypt  take 
wing  above  the  gunner's  head.  He  knows  not  how  to 
shoot. 

A  traveller's  destination  is  his  journey's  end.  The 
traveller's  destiny  comprises  all  his  adventures  by  the 
way,  and  the  success  or  failure  of  his  hopes  and  wishes 
for  that  and  every  other  journey  he  may  ever  make. 
The  traveller's  destiny  rides  on  horseback  outside  his 
carriage  door,  like  a  lady's  lover  or  a  convict's  guard 
or  a  general's  aide-de-camp. 

The  Moirai  sit  by  the  housewife's  hearth,  and  rock 
the  baby's  cradle.  The  three  weird  sisters,  Clotho, 
Lachesis,  and  Atropos,  spin,  measure  out,  and  clip  at 
the  appointed  length  the  thread  of  its  destined  life. 
Born  of  the  night,  they  explain  not  their  work ;  ser- 
vants of  deity,  they  listen  to  no  complaints;  joint 
regents  of  land  and  sea,  there  is  no  escape  from  their 
dominion ;  the  common  wives  of  one  husband,  Neces- 
sity, their  lips  and  the  baby's  lips  are  alike  sealed. 

And  thus  they  sat  at  the  cradle  of  the  world. 

Fate:  fatum  est,  sat  sapientibus  verhiim, —  "the  word 
has  gone  out,  and  shall  not  return. ...  So  shall  my  word, 
going  forth  from  my  mouth,  return  not  unto  me  void, 
but  accomplish  what  I  please,  and  prosper  where  I  send 
it."     It  is  decreed. 

From  this  ^v,"',  I  say,  Greeks  made  their  6r]ur],  a  voice 
from  heaven,  a  prophecy,  an  oracle;  and  Latins  their 
fama   (fame),  and  their  fatum    (fate).     For  whatever 


302  THE   DESTINT   OF   MAX.  [LECT. 

happens  is  first  ordered,  and  then  reported.  History 
is  but  the  echo  of  predestination.  And  the  joys  and 
sorrows  of  every  man  are  but  a  drama  pkiyed  between 
the  author  behind  the  scenes  and  the  audience  before 
the  footlights, —  an  anonymous  author,  and  an  audience 
indistinguishable  for  its  multitudinous  variety. 

What  then  is  fame,  unless  it  be  referred  back  to  its 
author  ?  And  what  worth  hath  human  history  except 
when  recited  by  a  soul  inspired  with  a  knowledge  of 
the  mind  of  God?  To  comprehend  the  destiny  of  a 
man  requires  a  comprehension  of  his  birth  and  educa- 
tion,—  those  hereditary  traits  which  characterized  the 
stock  on  which  he  budded,  and  the  divine  appointments 
of  soil  and  climate  in  which  he  grew ;  the  race  to  which 
he  belonged ;  the  century  in  which  he  lived ;  the  wealth 
or  poverty  which  lapped  him ;  the  winds  which  blew 
about  him ;  the  food  he  ate,  the  games  he  played,  the 
books  he  read,  the  women  he  loved,  the  battles,  great  or 
small,  with  himself  and  with  the  world  outside,  which 
he  fought,  and  how  in  each  and  all  of  them  the  victory 
perched.  For  out  of  all  these  destinies  his  destiny  is 
compounded. 

It  is  a  mere  trick  of  the  irrational  fancy  to  argue  that 
a  man's  death  is  his  destiny  because  when  he  dies  he 
vanishes  suddenly  from  view.  Yes :  from  our  view. 
But  how  is  that  event  more  significant  of  destiny  than 
was  his  sudden  appearance  on  the  scene  to  our  view  ? 
The  sentiment  which  palpitates  through  society  at  the 
death  of  a  man  has  as  little  share  in  the  "  Word  of  the 
Lord "  as  the  applause  or  the  hisses  under  cover  of 
which  an  actor  quits  the  stage.  It  is  but  one  of  his 
many  adventures, —  a  part  of  his  continuous  destiny; 
and  commonly  as  slight  an  index  of  his  native  charac- 
ter as  it  is  an  unimportant  episode  of  his  biography. 
The  majority  of  human  beings,  like  guests  from  a 
crowded  ball-room,  slip  away  unperceived. 

Destiny  for  the  individual  is  made  up  of  unnoticed 
and  unnoticeable  articles.  It  streams  through  one's 
days  and  nights  as  diseased  or  healthy  blood-globules 
succeed  each  other  through  one's  veins.  It  tempers  a 
man's  palate,  and  nerves  his  arms.     It  looks  out  at  him 


XII.]  THE   DESTI^'Y   OF   MAN.  303 

from  the  e3'es  of  his  wife,  and  is  reflected  upon  him  iu 
the  behavior  of  his  children.  It  furnishes  or  unfur- 
nishes  his  homestead.  It  sows  and  reaps  his  fields.  It 
sharpens  or  blunts  the  tools  of  his  handicraft.  It  per- 
vades his  heart  with  passions,  and  his  brain  with  ideas. 
It  is  the  orbit  in  which  he  moves  toward  or  from  the 
central  sun  of  his  existence,  drawing  him  inward  to  the 
warmer  and  more  brilliant  regions  of  the  universe,  or 
driving  him  forth  into  the  outer  darkness  and  cold  of 
solitary  spaces. 

But  the  main  point  is,  How  does  the  man  himself 
regard  his  own  fate  ? 

This  also  is  part  of  his  fate,  and  may  be  almost  called 
the  self-determining  will  of  his  fate.  For,  if  he  make 
himself  his  fate's  friend,  all  will  go  well  with  it  and  him. 
But,  if  he  conceives  an  aversion  for  it,  if  it  disgusts 
him,  enrages  him,  torments  him  ;  if  he  be  afraid  of  it,  as 
a  burglar  breaking  into  his  chamber,  or  as  a  jailer  feed- 
ing him  on  bread  and  water  who  may  forget  or  with- 
hold and  leave  him  to  starve,  or  as  a  tyrant  whose  nod 
can  at  any  moment  order  him  to  execution,  or  as  a 
treacherous  guide  who  will  probably  lead  him  to  self- 
destruction,  or  as  a  master  who  only  wants  him  for  a 
tool  or  a  plaj'thing  or  raw  stuff  to  make  something  else 
out  of — then  he  and  it  are  lost  together. 

INIen  lump  all  fatalists  and  condemn  them  in  a  mass. 
But  no  difference  can  be  more  fundamental,  more  egre- 
gious, more  operative,  than  the  difference  between  fatal- 
isms and  —  fatalisms.  Buddhistic  fatalism  is  grandiose, 
if  absurd.  Mohammedan  fatalism  is  as  commonplace 
as  it  is  enervating.  Christian  fatalism  is  inspiring, 
stimulating,  strengthening,  and  affectionate.  Scientific 
fatalism  is  the  soul  of  curiosit}',  the  basis  of  reason,  a 
whip  to  investigation,  a  sword  to  superstition ;  robs 
religion  of  its  terrors,  and  prepares  the  whole  apparatus 
of  the  future  for  man's  salvation. 

Kismet,  murmurs  the  Turk,  on  the  approach  of  the 
cholera  or  plague,  and  sits  down  to  smoke  his  pipe. 
Deo  volente,  whispers  the  Christian,  as  he  hurries  to  the 
hospital  to  save  whom  he  can.  And  there  he  finds 
already  in  advance  of  him  the  man  of  science  calmly 


804  THE   DESTINY    OF   MAN.  [LECT. 

studying  tlie  unalterable  law  of  disease,  and  the  trained 
nurse  instructed  in  a  routine  as  intelligent  and  regular 
as  that  of  the  solar  system,  representing  in  her  sacred 
person  the  mind,  the  heart,  and  the  hand  of  God  — 
all  three  in  one  —  and  she  also  a  fatalist,  knowing  how 
to  say  of  any  patient :  saved !  or,  doomed !  but  never 
damned  ! 

The  future  destiny  of  mankind  is  for  all  to  become 
fatalists  in  the  Christian  sense ;  to  say,  "  If  thou  wilt 
not  what  I  will,  then,  O  Lord,  I  will  what  thou  willst; 
and  so  we  shall  still  be  agreed."  As  the  order  of  the 
world  becomes  universally  known  it  will  become  uni- 
versally both  acquiesced  in  and  enjoyed,  both  obeyed 
and  commanded.  Learn  to  obey  and  thou  shalt 
become  ruler,  says  the  Fate  in  Nature  to  the  Fate  in 
Man.  Love  me  and  I  will  serve  thee,  says  this  queen- 
lover  to  her  lackey.  Lift  my  veil  reverently  and  take 
a  thousand  kisses,  says  this  Isis  to  the  priest.  Fear 
the  Lord  and  depart  from  evil,  so  shall  thy  days  be 
long  and  prosperous  on  earth,  rings  through  the  air  of 
all  lands,  and  will  so  ring  for  a  thousand  years,  until  all 
shall  know  the  Lord  from  the  greatest  even  unto  the 
least  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Adam. 

Nature  then  is  fate,  and  natural  religion  is  the  des- 
tined religion  of  the  future.  Man's  salvation  is  the 
product  of  obedience  to  the  Col-Jehovah ;  this  "  voice 
which  maketh  the  hinds  to  calve,  and  breaketh  the 
cedars  of  Lebanon" ;  and  the  salvation  of  the  race  is  to 
be  an  outcome  of  universal  education  in  true  science, 
where  all  shall  know  the  Lord,  and  hearken  diligently 
to  his  voice, —  of  a  universal  training  of  the  brain,  the 
affections,  and  the  will  of  men  of  all  races  in  all  lands. 

How  is  this  to  come  about  ?  Education,  by  the  mul- 
tiplication of  teachers ;  sanctification,  by  the  multipli- 
cation of  saints ;  activity,  by  the  multiplication  of 
heroes.  But  teachers,  saints,  and  heroes  are  them- 
selves men  and  women. 

Therefore,  the  prime  and  central  fate  of  mankind  is 
man  himself.  This  is  that  God  manifest  in  flesh.  This 
is  that  Holy  Ghost.  This  is  the  Jesus  who  is  to  be 
with   people  —  his   people,   and    all    mankind   are   his 


Xri.]  THE   DESTINY    OF    MAN.  305 

people  —  to  the  end  of  time ;  and,  as  he  walks,  his 
special  followers  walk  behind  him  as  students  follow  a 
demonstrator  through  the  clinic ;  and  the  following 
grows  as  the  ages  elapse  ;  and  finally  the  whole  mixed 
multitudes  of  the  earth  will  be  but  one  vast  flock,  led 
by  the  great,  good  Shepherd. 

Meanwhile,  every  good  soul  is  a  Jesus  redivivus,  and 
has  his  or  her  own  desert  and  Galilee,  Tabor  and  Geth- 
semane.  As  he  was  a  fate  to  millions,  each  of  them 
becomes  a  fate  to  many.  Science  blunders  if  she  limits 
her  definition  of  fate  as  habitat  by  excluding  man.  The 
prime  factor  in  the  habitat  of  the  bird  is  the  abundance 
or  scarcity  of  seed ;  of  the  fish,  the  temperature  of  the 
sea ;  of  the  buffalo  and  the  horse,  the  luxuriance  or 
drought  of  the  prairie  grass;  but  of  man,  the  virtue  or 
vice  of  surrounding  people. 

Every  human  being  is  therefore  a  main  part  of  the 
fate  of  his  or  her  fellow-creatures;  and  the  destiny  of  a 
generation  or  of  a  race  is  determined  by  a  plebiscite 
vote,  just  as  is  the  result  of  an  election  held  on  demo- 
cratic principles.  The  majority  carries  the  day  and 
holds  the  reins  of  government.  But  an  aristocratic 
minority  also  exercises  power,  and  more  power  in  pro- 
portion to  its  size  than  the  democratic  majority.  The 
proof  of  resident  deity  is,  that,  in  the  long  run,  the 
minority  of  goodness  outweighs  the  majority  of  bad- 
ness, so  that"  the  whole  tendency  of  history  is  toward 
goodness.  For,  one  man  or  woman,  if  wise  and  good, 
can  affect  the  fate  of  societ}^  more  than  a  score  of  men 
and  women  who  are  foolish  and  ill-behaved.  Because 
nature  —  that  is,  fate — justifies  the  words  and  conduct 
of  the  wise  openh'  in  the  sight  of  all,  and  as  openly 
condemns  folly  by  punishing  it. 

The  destiny  of  mankind  then,  after  all  said,  hangs 
and  turns  on  the  hinges  of  individual  human  conduct; 
on  personal  goodness,  and  the  normal  increase  of  the 
number  of  individuals  who  are  personally  good.  Fa- 
natics sigh  for  some  impossible  liighcr  exhibition  of  indi- 
vidual goodness,  some  abiKjrmal  display  of  superhuman 
qualifications  for  a  normal  terrene  life.  The  wise  anti- 
cipate only  an  increase  of  human  goodness  in  the  gross ; 


806  THE   DESTINY    OF    MAN.  [LECT. 

a  perfect  sum  total  of  earthly  goodness ;  when  none 
shall  be  better  than  the  best  who  have  already  lived, 
but  when  all  shall  be  good,  and  thus  consent  and  con- 
cur to  keep  all  good.  Let  the  wise  and  good  breed 
many  children  in  their  own  likeness,  and  let  the  seed  of 
the  ungodl}^  perish.  So,  and  so  only,  shall  the  earth  be 
filled  with  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters  fill  the 
sea. 

But  what  is  goodness  ? 

Anon !  Anon !  That  requires  illustrations,  and  we 
must  pursue  our  train  of  thought  a  little  further. 

There  is  a  distinction  to  be  drawn  between  the  phys- 
ical and  spiritual  destinies  of  mankind,  although  they 
are  so  intimately  interwoven  that  they  must  be  real- 
ized together.  For  Manicheism  is  absurd,  and  the  last 
traces  of  Asceticism  are  disappearing  from  the  morning 
sky.  We  are  followers  of  St.  Paul,  not  of  St.  Anthony. 
The  time  comes  when  all  fakirs  and  dervishes  will  be 
committed  to  houses  of  correction,  with  Italian  organ- 
grinders  and  book-agents.  The  flesh  is  as  good  as  it 
is  beautiful,  as  good  and  as  beautiful  as  the  mind  and 
soul,  and  much  more  easily  saved.  But  the  flesh  exists 
only  for  the  life  that  is  in  it,  and  beauty  should  be  only 
the  garb  of  goodness. 

The  physical  destiny  of  each  individual  man,  then,  is 
to  eat  and  live,  to  propagate  children  and  die. 

The  physical  destiny  of  mankind  as  a  whole,  may  be 
stated  in  the  same  terms.  It  is  at  least  true  that  the 
physical  sciences  predict  with  absolute  confidence  the 
coming  of  a  time,  however  remote  from  the  present  age, 
when  the  sun  will  cease  to  shine,  water  to  flow,  grass  to 
grow,  and  man  to  exist  as  a  terrestrial  animal;  in  which 
most  remote  and  undatable  catastrophe,  however,  his- 
torical and  philanthropic  philosophers  can  hardly  be 
expected  to  interest  themselves. 

Nearer  and  dearer  topics  of  meditation  absorb  us :  — 
the  growth  of  virtue  in  man  and  woman,  the  welfare  of 
separate  communities,  the  good  ordering  of  local  gov- 
ernments, the  preservation  or  premature  decay  and  pos- 
sible extinction  of  races  in  detail,  and  the  spring  and 
spread  of  benignant  influences,  ameliorating  the  cares 


XU.]  THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN.  307 

and  sorrows  of  men  of  every  race,  in  every  quarter  of 
the  globe. 

It  is,  in  fact,  the  possible  enhancement  of  human 
virtue  and  human  happiness  which  instigates  the  good 
to  action,  generates  a  true  public  spirit,  makes  reform- 
ers, martyrs,  and  philosophers  merry,  and  indicates  tlu' 
character  of  that  millennial  age,  the  very  name  of 
which  is  to  most  minds  the  equivalent  of  human 
destiny. 

But,  in  this  sense,  the  destiny  of  a  man  and  the  des- 
tiny of  mankind  are  terms  which  at  first  sight  bear 
different  and  opposite  meanings ;  although  on  further 
observation  these  meanings  will  be  seen  to  resolve 
themselves  into  one  and  the  same, —  in  materials,  proc- 
ess of  manufacture,  and  final  use. 

What,  asks  the  Westminster  Catechism,  is  the  chief 
end  of  man? 

Answer :  The  chief  end  of  man  is  to  glorify  God  and 
enjoy  him  forever. 

In  no  case  is  this  chief  end  of  a  man's  existence  on 
earth  likely  to  be  wholl}^  and  perfectly  fulfilled;  for 
individual  perfection  is  hindered  at  the  commencement 
of  life  by  inherited  defects  of  both  material  and  con- 
struction ;  and  throughout  the  whole  course  of  life  by 
defects  of  education  and  untoward  circumstances. 

The  theological  doctrine  of  original  sin  is  plainly  a 
fanciful  portraiture  of  the  hereditary  disabilities  under 
which  each  human  being  is  ushered  upon  the  stage  of 
life  —  disabilities  which  are  undeniable  facts,  and  uni- 
versally felt  to  be  so. 

The  Oriental  saying  quoted  by  Jesus  in  his  conver- 
sation with  the  young  man  of  the  Gospels :  ^  Why  call- 
est  thou  me  good  ?  There  is  none  good  save  God,"  is 
merely  an  exaggeration  or  forensic  generalization  of 
those  imperfections,  so  numerous  and  so  disabling, 
which  every  human  being  has  been  compelled  to  recog- 
nize in  his  own  behavior,  in  childhood,  in  middle  life, 
and  in  old  age  alike. 

Yet  "be  ye  perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  per- 
fc'-t  "  must  be  a  command  based  upon  some  sound  and 
general  condition  of  things  in  this  world,  and  is  in  fact 


308  THE    DESTINY   OF   MAN.  [LECT. 

fully  justified  by  the  near  approach  to  perfect  manhood, 
or  likeness  to  the  highest  ideal  of  mankind,  actually 
made  by  multitudes  of  men  and  women  in  every  gen- 
eration. 

It  is  evidently  as  possible  for  a  man  or  a  woman  to 
be  perfectly  good,  as  it  is  possible  for  a  cow,  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances,  to  fulfil  all  her  righteous- 
ness, or  for  an  exceptionally  fine  horse  to  run  the 
mortal  career  of  an  absolutely  typical  or  model  horse, 
or  for  a  monkej''  to  be  as  complete  and  perfect  a  mon- 
key as  could  be  got  up  by  any  creator  on  the  basis  of 
such  and  such  generic  and  specific  characters. 

But  it  is  equally  evident  that  the  very  perfection  of 
a  cow  lies  in  her  laziness,  without  which  she  would  be 
lean  and  tough  and  milkless ;  that  the  perfection  of  a 
horse  culminates  in  his  stupidity,  without  which  man 
would  find  it  impossible  to  manage  his  fiery  strength. 
The  perfection  of  a  monkey  is  its  sinfulness,  its  insane 
passion  for  mischief,  an  abandon  of  curiosity  tormenting 
to  the  surrounding  animal  world.  That  of  the  tiger  is  his 
cruelty  and  craft  and  treachery  and  deceit.  That  of  a 
snake  is  its  venom  and  ability  to  fascinate  and  swallow 
pitilessly  birds  and  small  quadrupeds;  that  of  a  fish, 
to  gluttonize  on  shoals  of  its  own  offspring ;  that  of  the 
eagle,  to  rob  ewes  of  their  lambs  and  pick  out  their  eyes. 
These  abilities  and  habitudes  are  the  forms  which 
divine  perfection  puts  on  in  such  creatures  and  also  in 
man,  so  long  as  man  remains  a  citizen  of  the  animal 
commonwealth,  and  also  afterward;  but  less  and  less 
as  he  migrates  toward  and  finally  settles  in  the  new 
world  of  super-animal  civility.  And  at  last  the  substi- 
tution of  another  set  of  qualities  changes  the  exhibi- 
tion of  God  in  flesh  to  a  more  glorious  fashion. 

"  Be  ye  perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect," 
is  then  a  phrase  carrying  two  very  different  meanings, 
corresponding  to  the  two  kinds  of  human  goodness  — 
the  goodness  of  man  as  a  spirited  animal  and  the  good- 
ness of  man  as  an  embodied  spirit.  The  first  kind  of 
goodness  being  very  general  in  the  world,  and  the  last 
kind  of  goodness  being  in  Jesus'  day  very  rare  —  and 
still   rare   enough  for  dogmatic  purposes  in  our  own 


Xn.]  THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN.  309 

times  —  Jesus  cominauded  and  prophesied  it,  not  the 
other  kind. 

The  philosopher  of  the  nineteenth  century  expects  a 
millennium  illustrated  by  both  kinds  of  human  perfec- 
tion ;  not  in  rare  cases  and  classes,  and  favored  individ- 
uals and  sects,  but  universally.  All  men  and  women 
shall  in  course  of  ages  become  as  good,  as  perfect  as 
horses,  cows,  monkeys,  tigers  and  snakes  are,  and  also 
as  good,  as  perfect  as  Jesus  was,  and  also  as  good,  as 
perfect,  in  their  kind,  as  God  the  Father  is  in  his  infi- 
nite, comprehensible,  and  unmistakable  way. 

In  other  words,  the  lower  and  the  higher  natures  of 
all  mankind  —  physique  and  intellect,  passions:  and 
aspirations  —  shall  both  of  them  be  cultivated  to  per- 
fection, universally,  under  every  possible  variety  of  cir- 
cumstance, stirpal  and  personal,  tribal,  national,  com- 
munal, and  familiar.  The  breeding  of  man  will  become 
as  high  an  art  as  the  breeding  of  plants  or  cattle. 
And  this  art  must  apply  itself  with  the  same  conscien- 
tious closeness  to  the  various  utilities  of  man-kind  as  to 
the  various  utilities  of  cattle-kind  and  plant-kind.  Beg- 
garly science  that,  to  make  all  men  alike  and  all 
women  alike,  in  making  them  perfect  as  God  is  perfect ! 
The  stars  must  differ  still  in  glory  after  the  differ- 
ent species  of  glow-worms  have  become  stars.  The 
glory  of  each  will  be,  that  it  will  shine  its  own  kind  of 
light.  Creeds  cannot  manage  this  sort  of  thing.  No 
technical  doctrine  of  goodness  and  badness  can  cast  so 
much  as  a  rushlight  along  so  vast  a  vista  as  that  of  the 
future  —  mankind  perfectly  arranged  according  to  all 
the  human  qualities  and  all  their  uses ;  each  quality 
being  good  for  its  appropriate  uses,  and  each  use  being 
good  in  its  appropriate  circumstances,  and  bad  only 
when  out  of  time  and  tune  in  the  orchestra.  Some 
men  are  born  fifes  and  D  flutes,  and  others  are  born 
diapason  pipes  and  ophicleides,  and  others  clanging 
cymbals  or  kettle-drums,  and  some  delicate  violins  or 
superb  'cellos,  or  martial  bugles  and  cornets,  or  soul- 
ravishing  French  horns ;  and  some  are  the  voices  of 
angels  who  have  come  unperceived  to  listen  to  the  con- 
cert, and  stayed  to  partake  in  it. 


310  THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN.  [LECT. 

By  all  these  are  the  Composer's  thoughts  turned  into 
music.  But  in  each  reside  possibilities  of  harmony  and 
discord ;  and  these  possibilities  realize  themselves  in 
what  we  call  human  goodness  and  human  badness.  If 
the  music  call  for  harmony,  then  discord  is  bad.  But 
if  the  music  call  for  discord,  then  harmon}^  becomes 
bad.  Good  and  evil  change  places.  And  this  is  tlie 
key  to  the  right  interpretation  of  human  history.  And 
this  is  also  the  test  of  reason  in  any  system  of  ethics ; 
of  divinity  in  any  religious  creed.  It  certainly  domi- 
nates the  true  logic  of  human  depravity ;  for  the  ques- 
tion is  not,  Are  all  men  sinners  ?  but,  Is  all  sin  sin  ? 

To  discuss  sin,  one  must  begin  with  original  sin.  All 
sin  is  in  fact  original,  just  as  all  virtue  is  original,  since 
both  issue  like  wind  from  the  pipes  of  the  organ,  man  ; 
for  the  wind  has  no  music  when  it  is  blown  into  the 
pipes,  but  the  reed  in  the  pipe  originates  the  music. 
Each  of  its  own  kind,  true  or  false,  good  or  bad,  accord- 
ing as  it  is  made  and  tuned,  and  not  otherwise. 

The  doctrine  of  orisfinal  sin  might  be  aro^ued  for  from 
small  to  large,  from  the  defects  in  every  baby  born 
to  the  brutality  of  savage  populations  and  the  prevalent 
vices  of  cities.  But  it  is  demonstrated  by  those  results 
of  archaeological  research  which  have  been  described 
in  Lecture  VI.  on  the  early  Social  Life  of  Man :  — 
no  age  of  gold,  no  Adaraic  Eden ;  cave-dwellers  of  the 
Stone  ages,  oscillating  to  and  fro  in  front  of  the  polar 
ice;  invaded,  driven  back,  extinguished  or  absorbed  by 
succeeding  races  of  equally  barbarous  metal-workers 
of  the  bronze  and  iron  ages ;  followed  by  civilizations 
abortive,  cultivating  superstitions  hideous ;  from  all 
which  arose,  in  the  last  times,  true  learning  and  genuine 
humanity. 

No  man  has  been  good,  no  race  has  not  deserved  the 
name  of  bad.  Yet  God  was  at  first  and  afterward  and 
all  the  time  good,  and  his  nature  sweet  and  true.  For 
man,  all  God's  plans  and  performances  were  only  tenta- 
tive and  preparatory,  but  how  prophetic  ! 

Good!  There  we  have  a  Joseph's  coat  of  many 
colors. 

Groodf     All  things  have  been  always  good  and  right. 


Xn.]  THE   DESTINY  OF   MAN.  311 

For  mankind  is  a  thing.     And  every  man  is  a  thing. 

What,  then,  must  we  mean  by  good? 

In  the  eye  of  science,  philosophy  and  Optimism,  the 
arranged  is  good,  the  disarranged  is  bad.  Filth  is  mat- 
ter out  of  place.  Sin  is  intemperance,  disobedience, 
irrationality,  inconsistency,  imperfection,  incomplete- 
ness. 

Nothing  can  be  teleologically  good  until  it  is  finished. 
Nothing  can  be  scientifically  bad,  if  it  be  going  on  unto 
completion.  To  move  is  to  live ;  and  life  has  the  seed 
of  the  perfect  in  it,  although  it  doth  not  yet  appear 
"what  it  shall  be. 

In  the  last  analysis,  the  had  turns  out  to  be  the 
inconvenient.  But  it  is  quite  convenient  to  itself  and 
to  its  generating  element.  For  all  else,  it  is  inconven- 
ient, and  therefore  bad.  The  young  wolf  is  good  to  the 
old  wolf,  but  bad  to  the  ewe  and  its  lamb.  Weeds  are 
beneficent  to  the  waste  land,  to  the  rivers  that  drain 
their  reservoir  of  rain-water,  to  the  soil  they  protect 
from  erosion,  to  the  birds  they  feed  with  seeds,  whose 
nests  they  supply  with  timber,  to  the  botanist  whose 
heart  they  rejoice ;  but  the  farmer  sees  in  them  a  curse 
for  Adam's  sin.  "  Thorns  and  briars  shall  it  produce, 
and  in  the  sweat  of  thy  brow  shalt  thou  eat  bread"  he 
murmurs,  as  he  pulls  them  up  and  crushes  them  under 
stones,  as  evil  and  only  evil,  and  that  continually. 

Can  we  say  less  of  the  Bedouin,  "that  wicked 
race  "  of  Egyptian  literature,  the  Kurd,  the  Miaotze,  or 
the  red  Indian?  Have  not  barbarians  been  thorns  in 
the  side  of  every  local  ci^^lization■?  Yet  hold  not  all 
barbarous  tribes  from  Nature  a  freehold  right  to  habi- 
tation, and  Nature's  passport  of  citizenship?  Is  not 
Nature's  aegis  of  protection  thrown  over  them  as  effec- 
tively as  over  classic  Greece  and  Rome?  Where  are 
Babylon  and  Memphis  now  ?  Were  they  good  because 
they  were  seats  of  learning  and  centres  of  art  ?  Where 
now  is  that  Jerusalem,  tlie  Holy  City,  the  delight  of 
the  whole  earth? 

If,  then.  Nature  lovingly  protects  the  bad,  God  must 
love  the  bad;  or — man  is  mistaken  as  to  what  is  bad. 

Both  are  true.      God  loves  and  cherishes  as  good 


312  THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN.  [LECT. 

much  that  man  designates  and  denominates  the  bad. 
Jesus  taught  this  in  parables,  and  science  exphiins  his 
parabk'S. 

When  Jesus  turned  to  the  woman  and  said  unto  her, 
"  Go  in  peace,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee  :  sin  no  more" 
lie  expressed  the  central  truth  of  human  wisdom  —  that 
the  good  is  the  convenient,  and  the  bad  the  inconven- 
ient. The  tree  of  life  and  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  grow  side  by  side.  In  the  vernacular,  the 
good  is  proper  and  the  evil  'improp>er.  Proper  to  what? 
Proper  to  its  own  time  and  circumstances ;  that  is,  con- 
venient. To  kill  a  tiger  is  heroic,  to  kill  a  monkey  is 
shameful,  to  kill  a  slave  detestable.  No  words  can 
express  our  horror  of  the  thumbscrew  and  faggot ;  but 
we  have  only  terms  of  admiration  for  the  dentist's  tools 
and  the  moxa.  And  yet  good  men  have  been  inquisi- 
tors, sportsmen,  members  of  Vigilance  Committees. 
The  question  is,  Did  they  know  what  they  were  doing? 
The  last  words  of  Jesus  were,  "  Father,  forgive  them, 
for  they  know  not  what  they  do."  Who  ?  Even  they 
who  howled,  "  Awa}^  with  this  fellow  from  the  earth." 
Was  it  because  he  was  so  supremely  good  ?  No :  it  was 
because  he  could  not  look  upon  them  as  so  very  bad. 
They  were,  in  fact,  men  who  loved  their  wives,  their 
children  and  their  countr}^ — good  citizens,  as  the  times 
went,  but  semi-civilized.  They  had  not  yet  attained. 
Their  character  was  inchoate,  fcetal ;  in  a  stage  of  the 
process  of  formation  at  which  they  were  but  half-made 
men.     Their  destiny  was  in  mid-career. 

What  is  true  then  of  animals  in  natural  history, 
and  of  savages  and  criminals  in  human  history,  must 
i)e  true  also  of  the  evil-minded  and  evil-doers  with 
whom  we  live.  They  are  not  bad  in  the  eyes  of  God 
;ind  of  Nature  in  the  same  sense  in  which  they  seem  so 
bad  to  us.  We  are  easily  deceived  b}-  our  natural  love 
of  what  is  to  us  convenient.  The  shingle-stealer  has 
certainly  more  right  to  the  timber  of  the  forest  than  we 
liave ;  for  he  works  it  for  the  convenience  of  society, 
and  does  no  harm  to  any  one.  Yet  we  brand  him  as  a 
thief,  and  shut  him  up  from  the  light  of  the  sun  like  a 
wild  beast,  precisely  as  if  he  had  starved  his  family. 


XII.]  THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN.  313 

Whatever  traverses  our  personal  convenience,  that  is 
bad.     This  is  the  shibboleth. 

Let  us  take  another  view.  Let  us  suppose  that  the 
State  owned  the  forest,  and  that  the  shingle-cutter  were 
a  citizen.  Is  he  changed?  Is  his  conduct  altered? 
Does  he  support  his  family  otherwise  than  as  before  ? 
Is  he  less  or  more  diligent,  enduring,  self-sacrificing, 
honest  to  the  store-keeper,  attentive  to  sick  neighbors  ? 
Is  he  less  or  more  passionate,  sober,  envious,  truthful, 
chaste,  or  profane  ?  The  situation  is  unchanged.  The 
man  is  unchanged.  His  deeds  are  the  same :  his 
thoughts,  his  words,  his  behavior,  are  just  what  they 
were  before.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  he  is  now  no  longer 
a  thief,  but  an  honest  fellow  and  good  citizen. 

What,  then,  has  wrought  this  result  ?  Something  that 
has  happened  hundreds  of  miles  away,  at  Harrisburg, 
or  in  Philadelphia.  An  idea  has  slipped  from  men's 
minds  and  been  replaced  by  another  idea. 

Another  case :  A  poor  man  in  a  city  steals  a  loaf  of 
bread,  because  he  has  had  no  work  and  his  children  are 
crying  for  something  to  eat.  He  is  a  thief,  a  beggar,  a 
miscreant.  He  is  arrested,  tried,  convicted,  and  sent 
to  jail.* 

But  suppose  a  change  of  ideas  in  the  minds  of  the 
people  of  that  city  to  take  place.  Instead  of  the  idea 
that  the  thief  is  a  public  enemy,  suppose  the  idea  that  he 
is  the  public's  ward.     Instead  of  the  idea  that  the  con- 

*  Tuesday,  Feb.  22,  1881,  the  coroner  was  informed  of  a  dead 
body  in  a  house  near  Milwaukee  in  Wisconsin.  He  found  a  mother 
ill  on  the  ninth  day  after  her  confinement.  The  child  had  been 
dead  two  days.  Four  children  under  ten  years  of  age,  with  herself, 
had  had  no  food  for  forty-eight  hours,  except  scrapings  from  an  old 
swill-barrel,  which  had  formerly  been  used  in  carrying  slops  from  a 
distillery.  Ernst  Lutz,  the  father,  was  in  jail,  awaiting  trial  for 
stealing  an  old  harness.  On  the  previous  day,  he  had  finished  a 
term  of  sixty  days,  at  the  house  of  correction  for  a  i^etty  offence, 
and  was  arrested  again  as  he  left  the  jail. 

The  blind  philanthropy  of  modern  ideas  refused  to  whip  for  the 
"petty  offence,"  and  death  and  starvation  was  its  reward.  Thrust 
the  inconvenient  by  all  means  out  of  sight  for  sixty  days,  and  again 
for  sixty  days.  But  the  baby  will  die,  and  the  mother  and  chil- 
dren starve.  Xo  matter.  Thrv.st  the  inconvenient  out  of  sight, — • 
it  is  intolerable,  it  is  bad.     Bury  it  alive  as  much  as  possible ! 


314  THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN.  [LECT. 

venience  of  society  means  that  of  the  shrewd,  active, 
and  well-to-do  political,  mercantile,  and  artisan  classes, 
suppose  the  idea  to  become  prevalent  that  the  con- 
venience of  society  means  the  regulated  welfare  of  old 
and  young,  rich  and  poor,  sick  and  well,  shrewd  and 
simple,  ill  and  well  born,  ill  and  well  educated,  each 
and  all  alike.  Suppose  that  out  of  this  idea  some  ad- 
mirable municipal  organization  of  property  and  labor 
should  be  made  to  include  some  cunning  organization 
of  the  feebler  and  more  vicious  classes  of  society  for 
streugtliening  and  bettering  them.  Suppose  that  the 
same  philanthropy  should  be  applied  to  vice  and  want 
that  is,  in  some  good  degree,  already  applied  to  disease 
and  insanity.  In  a  word,  and  for  the  sake  of  specimen, 
suppose  that  there  were  a  municipal  store-house  to 
which  the  man  who  stole  that  loaf  might  betake  him- 
self,—  go  and  take  his  loaf  of  bread,  not  from  the  pri- 
vate baker  but  from  the  public  bakery,  and  pay  for  it 
by  presenting  a  due-bill  ticket  redeemable  by  one  or 
more  hours  of  labor  for  the  public  convenience ;  by 
sweeping  the  streets,  carting  refuse,  cleaning  sewers, 
building  levees  and  wharves,  dredging  channels,  car- 
rying bricks  for  public  buildings,  keeping  parks  in 
order,  serving  as  supernumerary  messenger,  police, 
hospital  servant,  etc.  until  he  could  earn  his  bread  in 
his  usual,  regular  and  private  way.  Would  he  then 
be  a  thi'f?  Yet  the  act  of  carrying  off  the  bread 
would  be  the  same,  and  the  use  of  it  would  be  the 
same.  The  man  would  be  unchanged,  and  his  rela- 
tions to  society  would  be  unchanged. 

The  change  would  be  in  our  ideas  of  the  moral  qual- 
ity of  one  of  his  million  acts.  He  was  a  bad  man 
because  he  committed  a  bad  act.  The  act  is  no  longer 
bad,  therefore  the  man  is  no  longer  a  bad  man.  Soci- 
ety retaining  its  first  idea  was  inconvenienced,  and 
clapped  him  in  jail.  Society  having  got  another  idea 
is  not  inconvenienced,  and  calls  him  a  good  and  useful 
citizen. 

Let  us  look  at  all  this  a  little  closer,  for  it  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  all  discussions  upon  the  Destiny  of  Man. 

To  return  to  the  shingle-cutter.     Does  he  believe  that 


XII.]  THE   DESTINY    OF   MAN.  315 

he  is  a  thief?  By  no  means.  He  breathes  the  air  and 
commits  no  theft,  for  God  gives  the  atmosphere  to  all. 
He  drinks  the  water  and  commits  no  theft,  for  God 
distils  rain  from  the  sea  for  the  life  of  all.  He  cuts  the 
forest  and  thinks  that  he  commits  no  theft,  for  he  sees 
that  God  has  spread  it  out  over  the  earth;  and  why  not 
for  the  good  of  all  ?  The  tree  he  cuts  would  otherwise 
rot  and  fall  and  disappear,  and  be  of  use  to  none.  He 
utilizes  it  for  some  farmer's  roof  in  the  low  country.  Is 
it  any  one  man's  special  property?  Whose?  Who 
made  it?  Has  any  one  planted  or  watered  it?  No  one 
but  God.  Then  God  alone  owns  it,  and  all  that  God 
owns  he  gives  to  mankind, —  to  the  man  who  will  make 
good  use  of  it.  It  is  his  by  first  right.  The  air  to  him 
who  breathes  it,  the  water  to  him  who  drinks  it,  the 
tree  to  him  who  cuts  it,  the  soil  to  him  who  farms  it. 

In  all  past  ages  these  common  possessions  of  the  race 
have  been  claimed  in  specialty  by  the  rapacious,  the 
powerful,  and  the  cunning ;  seized  upon  by  force  of 
arms,  and  held  by  acts  of  legislation.  But  legislation 
based  on  barbarous  or  semi-civilized  ideas  can  neither 
certify  truths  nor  qualify  rights.  And  the  shingle-cut- 
ter feels  this  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  and  acts  accord- 
ingly. The  same  inward  inspiration  has  made  the  slave 
a  thief  in  every  age  and  clime. 

Does  the  shingle-cutter  appropriate  a  tree  upon  his 
neighbor's  farm  ?  He  would  scorn  the  act.  Why  ? 
Because  he  feels  that  every  tree  on  a  farm  belongs  actu- 
ally, truly  and  of  right  reason,  to  the  farmer  who  works 
that  farm  ;  to  touch  it  would  be  theft,  and  he  is  no 
thief.  If  he  felt  that  the  claim  of  ownership  of  a  tree 
in  the  unbroken  forest  by  a  man  in  Philadelphia  who 
had  never  set  his  foot  upon  it  or  lifted  his  finger  to  use 
it,  was  a  genuine,  just  and  reasonable  claim,  he  would 
respect  it  also.  He  cannot  enforce  his  denial  of  the 
justness  of  the  claim  in  the  face  of  law  courts  and 
prisons,  backed  by  the  armed  force  of  the  State,  wielded 
by  the  man  in  Philadelphia;  but,  den3'ing  it  all  the 
same,  he  evades  it  all  the  same,  and  repudiates  the 
charge  of  theft  agahist  himself. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  theft  then :  theft  which  the 


316  THE  DESTINY   OF   MAN,  [LECT. 

mind  and  heart  of  every  man  recognizes  to  be  theft:  — 
the  robbery  or  spoliation  by  one  man  of  that  which 
another  really  and  truly  owns,  according  to  the  laws  of 
God  and  nature;  —  and  theft  constructive:  the  appro- 
priation by  one  man  of  what  he  rightly  or  wrongly  be- 
lieves not  truly  owned  by  others,  although  claimed  by 
one  or  more. 

Against  the  first  kind  of  theft  the  thunders  of  Sinai 
rolled,  and  all  society  wars;  it  is  the  destiny  of  man 
to  abolish  it. 

Against  the  second  kind  of  theft  the  statute-books  of 
Christendom  are  written,  and  the  overwhelming  forces 
of  the  organized  communities  of  the  nineteenth  century 
wage  cruel  and  protracted  warfare.  It  is  the  destiny  of 
man  to  abolish  this  kind  of  theft  also,  but  not  in  conse- 
quence of  that  warfare ;  still  less  by  the  petty  successes 
gained  in  that  campaign. 

All  crime  is  theft.  All  the  crimes  and  vices  of  man- 
kind resolve  themselves  into  theft.  The  whole  moral 
law  was  uttered  against  one  sin,  theft.  God  recognizes 
but  one  class  of  criminals  among  his  creatures, —  the 
robber. 

The  enemy  of  God  and  nature  is  that  thing,  that 
creature,  that  man  who  disturbs  good  order  by  living 
not  of  his  own  and  in  his  own,  but  in  and  of  and 
from  and  by  another's.  To  give  is  the  privilege ;  to 
steal  is  the  crime. 

Murder  is  the  theft  of  another's  life ;  and  the  worst 
of  thefts,  because  repentance  is  vain  and  restitution 
impossible. 

Adultery  is  the  theft  of  another's  wife ;  and  the  next 
worst  of  crimes,  because  it  robs  the  heart  and  invades 
and  destroj^s  the  very  nucleus  of  civilization,  the 
family. 

Fornication  is  theft ;  for  it  robs  the  woman  of  her 
honor,  and  her  relatives  of  a  part  of  their  standing  in 
society. 

Slander  and  false-witnessing  are  accursed,  because 
they  are  raids  upon  society ;  burglary  and  petty  larceny 
in  the  street  and  in  the  home;  filching  and  stealing 
the  most  personal  of  all  property,  a  man's  good  charac- 


XII.]  THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN.  317 

ter  and  standing  before  the  community ;  on  the  loss  of 
which  he  had  better  die,  than  live  compassionated  by 
his  friends,  mistrusted  by  his  companions,  feared  b}^ 
the  feeble  and  despised  by  the  strong. 

Lying  is  theft.  It  robs  men  of  what  they  have  a 
right  to  know.  It  forces  upon  their  acceptance  false 
coin  with  which  to  carry  on  the  business  of  life,  causing 
them  to  fail  of  the  success  to  which  they  are  entitled. 

Blasphemy  and  obscenity  are  theft.  They  rob  men 
of  the  pure  air  which  they  have  a  right  to  breathe,  and 
of  the  honest  thoughts  which  they  have  a  right  to 
enjoy. 

Envy  and  covetousness  are  theft  essential ;  theft  pure 
and  simple ;  theft  in  the  seed  and  in  the  bud ;  the  very 
soul  and  force  of  all  the  outward  forms  of  rapine  and 
murder  which  the  laws  of  human  society  are  invented 
and  enforced  to  suppress. 

But  observe  —  and  observe  it  well,  for  this  is  the 
kernel  in  the  nut — murder  is  not  theft,  if  the  murdered 
man  forfeits  his  right  to  live ;  nor  adultery,  if  the  hus- 
band's right  of  ownership  be  bad ;  nor  fornication,  if 
the  man  and  woman  wholly  own  themselves,  as  on  a 
desert  island ;  nor  slander  and  false-witness,  if  the  libel 
be  a  truth ;  nor  lying,  if  the  listener  have  no  right  to 
know;  nor  blasphemy  and  obscenity,  if  they  be  so  only 
according  to  the  superstition  and  impure  interpretation 
of  the  judges ;  nor  envy  and  covetousness,  if  they  be 
directed  to  what  is  common  property,  with  enough  for 
all  and  plenty  to  spare. 

In  other  words,  these  terrible  names  for  real  crimes 
are  not  to  be  applied  by  mistake,  by  popular  clamor,  by 
superstition,  by  fear,  favor  and  unrighteous  legislation, 
by  selfish  interest,  by  illogical  inference  and  narrow 
prejudice.  Alas,  the  crimes  are  real  and  too  prevalent. 
The  names  are  justly  bestowed  —  but  not  always.  How 
we  can  guard  the  virtues  from  having  forced  upon 
them  this  nomenclature  of  the  vices  is  the  question  of 
the  future.  And  how  we  can  spread  the  knowledge  of 
the  true  order  of  things  is  the  true  destiny  of  man. 

The  bigot  calls  the  pure  and  holy  testimony  of  the 
Quaker  and  the  INforavian  blasphemy.     For,  says  he,  it 


318  THE   DESTINY    OF   MAN.  [LECT, 

robs  God  of  his  glory,  the  Church  of  her  hxmbs,  and  the 
priesthood  of  its  power  to  loose  and  bind. 

The  Mormon,  or  the  Turk,  denounces  the  wife  (one  of 
many)  who  leaves  his  hareem  and  marries  another  man, 
as  an  adulteress,  and  shoots  or  stabs  her  new  husband 
as  a  seducer. 

Society  brands  as  a  harlot  the  innocent  and  guileless 
girl  who  yields  to  a  false  promise  of  marriage ;  hunts 
her  to  distraction  and  death,  and  rewards  her  betrayer 
with  the  presidency  of  a  railroad  or  insurance  company, 
or  sends  him  to  Congress  to  make  laws  for  the  good  of 
the  land  and  the  hastening  of  the  Millennium. 

Society  would  utter  a  cry  of  horror,  and  punish  if  it 
dared  with  confiscation  and  imprisonment  the  author  of 
a  book  unveiling  the  debaucheries  of  good  society ; 
while  it  proffers  all  the  resources  of  the  press  and  of 
the  post  to  the  publication  and  transportation  of  the 
vilest  writings  of  Paul  de  Kock  or  Balzac,  while  it  per- 
secutes in  a  hundred  ways  Anthony  Comstock,  the  only 
man  in  the  largest  city  of  the  Union  who  devotes  his 
life  to  the  suppression  of  obscenity. 

And  what  else  can  we  make  out  of  that  legal  rule, 
"  The  greater  the  truth  the  greater  the  libel,"  but  a 
government  device  to  protect  fraud  and  vice  by  giving 
the  vice-name  of  slander  to  the  virtue  of  uttering  whole- 
some truth  for  the  purpose  of  guarding  honest  people 
against  rogues  ?  To  rob  a  rogue  of  his  character  is  no 
robbery  ;  it  is  unmasking  the  wolf  in  the  sheep-fold. 

While  all  crimes  are  merely  species  of  one  genus, — 
theft — theft  is  only  theft  against  a  just  ownership. 
The  acknowledged  ownerships  of  savage  society  are 
mostly  genuine ;  the  legislative  ownerships  of  civilized 
communities  are  many  of  them  equally  genuine  and 
allowed  by  all ;  bui  many  of  them  are  fictitious,  en- 
acted by  the  privileged  for  special  classes,  and  are 
secretly  disowned  and  rebelled  against  by  the  multitude. 

Hence  the  majority  of  committed  crimes. 

Hence  the  periodical  rebellions  and  insurrections  of 
the  many  against  the  few. 

Hence  elaborate  codes  of  arbitrary  laws,  the  educa- 
tion of  professional  lawyers,  the  enrolment  of  standing 


XII,]  THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN.  319 

armies,  the  elevation  of  gibbets  and  multiplication  of 
prisons,  the  precipitate  of  a  pariah  class,  the  wander- 
'*}igs  of  a  host  of  tramps,  infinite  land  litigation,  the 
ruin  of  families  on  the  foreclosure  of  mortgages,  the 
ever-increasing  population  of  alms-houses,  the  organiza- 
tion of  labor  against  capital,  and  the  spread  of  social- 
istic doctrines  all  based  on  one  idea  —  La  propriete, 
ccst  le  vol. 

Has  it  then  come  to  this  ?  Is  the  destinj^  of  man  to 
be  a  bouleversement  of  the  divine  law  of  property,  on 
which  all  true  civilization  has  been,  is  now,  and  must 
forever  continue  to  be  based? 

Property  theft  !  Nay,  the  theft  of  property  is  theft. 
And,  if  mankind  have  any  one  definite  destiny  it  must 
be  to  demonstrate  this  in  theorj",  and  to  organize  in  all 
parts  of  the  habitable  world  the  right  applications  of 
this  theory  to  the  practices  of  life. 

What  men  own  and  what  they  do  not  and  cannot 
own  ;  what  women  own  and  do  not  own ;  what  children 
own  and  how  far  their  rights  of  property  are  merged 
in  or  limited  by  the  property  of  their  parents;  what 
society  owns,  to  the  extinction  of  individual  rights,  and 
what  it  only  claims  to  own,  without  any  right  but  that 
of  might;  what  are  the  periods,  qualities,  quantities 
and  guarantees  of  all  these  species  of  propriety;  and 
what  are  the  methods  by  which  their  public  statement 
and  record,  and  their  private  and  popular  recognition 
can  be  formulated,  so  that  misunderstanding  and  strife 
may  cease  —  these  are  the  highest  themes  of  the  philos- 
ophy of  the  future. 

These  have  always  been  and  are  now  the  main  topics 
of  human  conversation. 

But  desultory  conversation,  the  gossip  of  neighbors, 
the  objurgation  of  litigants,  the  scandalous  cross-exam- 
inations of  witnesses,  special  pleadings  at  the  bar,  and 
literal  precedents  of  the  bench,  newspaper  editorials, 
partisan  political  pamphlets,  discussions  at  board  meet- 
ings, riotous  speeches  at  the  polls,  fourth  of  July  ora- 
tions, inaugural  gubernatorial  and  presidential  ad- 
dresses, legislative  debates,  and  sectarian  sermons — all 
these  ordinary  and  universally  abundant  means  for  ven- 


320  THE   DESTINY   OF   MAN. 

tilating  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  human  race 
have  failed  hitherto,  and  fail  habitually  to  settle  the 
rights  of  human  property. 

Because  the  foundation  itself  must  be  deep  and  per- 
manent on  which  a  stable  edifice  is  to  be  erected ;  and 
no  such  sound  and  natural  theory  of  human  rights  has 
been  agreed  upon  as  will  safely  bear  the  vast  and  com- 
posite edifice  in  which  the  laws  of  practical  right  and 
wrong  are  hereafter  to  be  administered. 

Church  and  State,  monarchies  and  republics,  alike, 
continue  to  take  for  granted  the  revelations  and  inspira- 
tions of  the  past.  God  owns  absolutely  everything  and 
man  nothing.  The  man  everything  and  the  wife  and 
child  nothing  —  but  of  his  free  gift.  The  State  has  em- 
inent domain,  and  every  individual  must  buy  of  the 
State.  The  Church  has  a  monopoly  of  truth,  and  the 
individual  is  a  beggar  at  the  church-door.  The  right  to 
amass  wealth  is  unlimited,  and  the  inept  in  body,  mind 
or  heart  is  a  tolerated  or  beneficed  client  —  nothing 
more. 

How,  upon  these  cyclopean  foundation  walls,  laid  in 
the  centuries  gone  by,  can  the  New  Jerusalem  be  built 
and  all  the  sons  and  daughters  of  God  be  gathered 
into  it? 

New  foundations  can  Science  only  lay:  —  science, 
that  revelation  of  God  in  nature  to  and  for  the 
whole  human  race,  and  not  to  any  individual  human 
being.  Social  order  will  be  a  gradual  experimental, 
analytical  and  synthetic  discovery,  like  astronomical 
order,  or  geological  order,  or  any  other  generalization 
of  phj^sical  phenomena.  It  will  not  be  invented,  but 
fouiid  out.  It  will  grow  slowly,  secretly  and  openly, 
and  spread  this  way  and  that.  By  degrees  rights  and 
wrongs  will  reveal  themselves.  By  degrees  men  will 
know  what  they  own  and  what  they  do  not.  Then 
there  will  be  justice,  and  peace  on  earth  and  good-will 
among  men. 


J 


LECTURE   XIII. 

THE  PHYSICAL   DESTINY  OF   THE  KACE. 

The  destiny  of  maiikiud  depends  in  a  physical  sense 
on  the  permanence  of  its  liabitation ;  upon  the  continu- 
ance of  favoiable  circumstances  in  air,  land  and  water ; 
upon  the  maintenance  of  a  proper  temperature ;  upon 
geological  changes  which  may  happen  to  alter  the  sea- 
level  and  multiply  or  diminish  the  number  and  size  of 
lakes ;  upon  the  copiousness  of  harvests  in  fertile  parts, 
the  possible  reclamation  of  deserts,  the  preservation  of 
forests,  the  colonization  of  plants  and  animals  and  the 
culture  of  useful  fish ;  upon  the  inexhaustibility  of 
mineral  deposits ;  upon  the  practice  of  medicine  and 
the  knowledge  of  hygiene ;  upon  the  adjustment  of 
property  and  the  use  of  accumulated  wealth;  upon  the 
equal  distribution  of  handicrafts,  the  applications  of 
machinery,  the  multiplication  of  the  lines  of  commerce, 
and  the  prevalence  of  national  friendship ;  upon  the 
simplification  of  language,  the  extension  of  primary 
education,  the  elevation  of  the  intellect  of  the  whole 
race,  the  number  of  men  of  genius,  and  the  adoption 
of  pure  religion. 

The  Astronomical  future  of  our  globe  will  depend 
upon  the  results  of  actions  taking  place  in  the  Sun. 
The  earth  will  hardly  be  affected  by  the  planets  much 
more  than  it  is  now.  We  know  of  no  causes  likely  to 
alter  their  masses  or  orbits.  Their  distances  from  us 
will  remain  constant,  and  their  heat,  light  and  attrac- 
tion be  alike  unimportant.  But  indirectly  they  will 
continue  to  influence  the  earth  by  their  effects  upon 
the  Sun. 


322  THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.       [lECT. 

It  is  now  understood  that  when  the  larger  planets 
collect  upon  one  side  of  the  Sun  they  produce  a  marked 
change  in  the  number  and  size  of  its  spots,  although 
the  precise  nature  or  mode  of  operation  eludes  inquiry. 
It  has  also  become  an  accepted  fact  that  the  maxima 
and  minima  of  sun-spot  area  agree  with  the  maxima  and 
minima  of  magnetic  force  upon  the  earth,  of  auroral 
displays,  of  mean  temperature,  of  rainfall;  probably  of 
plenty  and  famine  ;  and  possibly  of  epidemic  disease.* 

A  connection  between  the  sun-spot  cycle  of  eleven 
years  and  the  cyclones  of  the  Indian  Ocean  has  been 
attempted  by  Mr.  Meldrum  of  the  Mauritius  Observa- 
tory, while  the  Indian  meteorologists  Archibald,  Blan- 
ford,  Broun,  the  two  Chambers,  Eliot  and  Hill  have 
sought  in  the  sun-spot  period  some  explanation  for  the 
droughts  and  famines  of  that  densely  populated  penin- 
sula. Frederick  Chambers  attributed  the  high  barome- 
ter and  deficient  rainfall  of  1877  to  less  sun-radiation' 
not  piling  the  atmosphere  at  the  equator.  Dr.  Hunter 
connected  the  sun-spots  with  the  famines  through  the 
barometer,  thus:  — 

1.  Variations  of  the  solar-spotted  area  are  succeeded 
months  afterwards  by  corresponding  abnormal  baro- 
metric variations,  a  high  barometer  corresponding  to  a 
minimum  of  sun  spots. 

2.  Famines  follow  in  the  wake  of  curves  of  high 
barometric  pressure. 

The  approach  of  famines  may  probably  be  foreseen  by 
the  immediate  publication  of  continuous  observations 
of  the  state  of  the  sun's  face,  and  by  immediate  publi- 
cation of  barometric  observations  in  high  and  low  lati- 
tudes. This  great  work  is  already  becoming  not  only 
national,  but  international,  and  must  needs  become  a 
complete  and  perfect  system  all  over  the  globe. f 

*  See  Baxendell's  researches  in  1878-9,  Manchester. 

t  Meldrum's  observations  sliow  by  observations  at  thirty-seven 
stations  in  his  district  tliat  the  rainfall  is  greater  about  times  of 
maximum  sun-spot  frequency.  Meldrum's  and  Poey's  observations 
seem  to  show  the  same  of  cyclonic  storms  both  in  the  Indian  Ocean 
and  Carribean  Sea.  Balfour  Stewart  has  recently  seen  reason 
to  believe  that  sun-spot  inequalities   of  short  duration   are  fol- 


Xin.]         THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  EACE.  323 

The  Meteorological  future  of  our  globe  could  be  safely 
predicted  were  its  past  records  at  our  command  in  any- 
thing like  a  complete  and  intelligible  shape.  But  these 
records  are,  on  the  contrary,  signally  deficient  and  sin- 
gularly obscure. 

We  have  but  two  criteria  to  judge  of  the  climate  of 
prehistoric  ages:  1.  the  former  extent  of  ice-  and  snow- 
fields  ;  and  2.  the  former  healthy  existence  of  animals 
and  plants  in  regions  which  they  no  longer  inhabit. 

When  Scandinavia  was  buried  under  a  solid  and  con- 
tinuous sheet  of  ice  as  Greenland  is  for  the  most  part 
now,  and  icebergs  drifted  over  an  arctic  sea  outspread 
upon  the  plain  of  Northern  and  Eastern  German}^  and 
dropped  their  blocks  of  granite  as  far  south  as  Leipzig 
in  Saxony  * ;  when  all  Canada  was  similarly  covered, 
and  all  New  England,  with  ice  so  thick  that  its  sloping 
surface  stood  above  the  highlands  of  southern  New 
York  and  north-western  Pennsylvania,  twenty-five  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  sea,  filling  the  great  basin  in  which 
lakes  Ontario,  Erie,  and  Huron  now  lie,  and  projecting 
glaciers  through  low  places  in  Ohio  and  Indiana  as  far 
southward  as  the  Ohio  river,  and  in  one  place  (in  west- 
ern Kentucky)  even  beyond  that  river;  leaving  on  its 
retreat  a  whole  zone  of  the  continent  covered  with  frag- 
ments, sand,  and  mud ;  reconstructing  the  surface  to- 
pography ;  and  dotting  our  maps  with  innumerable 
small  lakes  and  ponds,  caught  in  these  Northern  Drift 


lowed  by  corresponding  inequalities  in  the  diurnal  temperature 
range  of  Toronto  iu  Canada,  in  such  a  way  that  a  large  amount  of 
sun-spots  slightly  precedes  a  large  temperature  range.  Sabine  long 
ago  showed  that  the  diurnal  oscillations  of  the  magnetic  needle  are 
greatest  about  times  of  maximum  sun-spots,  lagging  behind  them, 
so  that  "  magnetic  weather  "  also  travels  from  west  to  east.  AVith 
all  this  agree  tlie  spectroscopic  observations  of  Lockyer  and  others 
and  the  actinometric  results  of  J.  II.  Hennessey  in  India.  The 
question  (raised  by  Professor  Stokes),  if  a  greater  amount  of  solar 
spots  denotes  a  greater  solar  activity,  seems  iu  a  fair  way  of  l)eing 
answered  affirmatively.  But  the  question  of  true  periodicity  is  not 
well  answered  yet ;  there  may  be  variability  with  true  periodicity. 
(See  B.  Stewart  in  Nature,  p.  237,  1881.) 

*The  most  recent  memoir  on  th«  subject  however  extends  the 
ice  sheet  itself  as  far  south  as  Leipsig. 


324  THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OP  THE  RACE.      [LECT. 

deposits  —  the  climate  of  the  globe  must  certainly  have 
been  of  a  very  different  temper  from  that  of  our  day. 

If  the  Scandinavian  ice-age  were  different  from  the 
Canadian  ice-age  in  point  of  time,  we  might  ascribe  its 
phenomena  to  largely  acting  local  causes,  not  affecting 
the  globe  as  a  whole.  But  it  is  difficult  to  find  marks 
of  such  a  distinction.  Most  geologists  believe  that 
Canada  and  Scandinavia,  Scotland  and  the  north  of 
England  and  Wales,  lay  buried  at  one  time  beneath  a 
sheet  of  moving  ice.  Siberia  shows  no  distinct  traces 
of  this  ice,  and  was  probably  left  bare.  But  the  Ural 
chain  was  covered ;  and  modern  glaciers  in  the  Altai 
range  present  themselves  as  remnants  of  a  similar  ice- 
sheet  covering  Mongolia  and  western  China.  The 
Tien-shan,  the  Pamian  plateau,  and  the  northern  Hima- 
layas probably  escaped  for  want  of  moisture,  as  they  do 
now,  in  spite  of  their  great  elevation.  But  the  Alps 
and  the  Pyrenees  had  their  covering  of  ice,  the  north- 
ern edge  of  which  flowed  down  over  Switzerland,  and 
banked  itself  against  the  Jura  Mountains  ;  while  its 
southern  edge  invaded  Piedmont  and  Lombardy  nearly 
to  Turin  and  Milan,  and  beyond  Verona.  Probably  all 
Languedoc  and  Provence  were  covered  for  the  short 
time  during  which  the  outspread  was  at  its  maximum ; 
for  Desor  has  recently  discovered  moraines  just  back  of 
Nice ;  and  reindeer,  polar  bears,  gluttons,  and  hairy 
mammoths  prowled  and  browsed  in  southern  France. 

The  recent  survey  of  British  Columbia  has  shown  a 
similar  ice-spread  over  the  two  mountain  ranges  and 
intermediate  valley-land  of  the  Pacific  coast  and  Vancou- 
ver's Island ;  but  Prof.  Whitney's  last  report  on  Cali- 
fornia shows  the  glaciers  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  as  always 
local  and  unconnected. 

The  cause  of  this  prevalence  of  ice  at  one  time  in 
the  northern  hemisphere  is  still  disputed.  Glacial  ice 
is  made  out  of  snow.  Snow  falls  only  along  the  paths 
taken  by  winds  saturated  with  moisture  evaporated 
from  the  sea  surface.  In  the  bitterly  cold  winter 
climate  of  Minnesota  and  British  Columbia,  swept  by 
dry  air,  the  snow-fall  is  so  light  that  the  Canada  Pacific 
railway  will  be  easily  worked.     To  get  into  the  heavy 


Xirr.]         THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.  325 

snow  belt  we  must  go  south  toward  Colorado  and  New 
Mexico.  The  balance  between  evaporation  and  frost  in 
the  Glacial  Age  must  have  turned  in  favor  of  the  for- 
mer, whether  the  real  mean  temperature  of  the  globe 
was  higher  or  lower  then  than  now.  There  must  have 
been  extra  evaporation,  a  more  constantly  saturated 
atmosphere,  whether  the  lower  strata  of  the  air  were 
extra  cold  or  not. 

Did  this  excess  of  evaporation  come  from  a  larger 
sea-surface  ?  Certainly  not  in  the  case  of  Europe  ;  nor 
in  the  case  of  British  Columbia  ;  nor  have  we  any  cer- 
tain evidence  of  the  submergence  of  the  Mississippi 
basin  at  that  time. 

Was  the  excess  of  evaporation  caused  by  a  temporary 
access  of  solar  energy  ;  operating  upon  the  oceanic 
areas  as  we  know  them,  in  the  southern  and  equatorial 
regions,  and  saturating  the  northern  frigid  zone  ? 

The  sentiment  of  geologists,  physicists,  and  palae- 
ontologists, in  favor  of  an  extra  cold  mean  climate  of 
the  northern  hemisphere  in  the  ice-age  is  pronounced. 
But  there  is  danger  of  reasoning  in  a  circle.  The  re- 
mains of  the  reindeer  in  southern  France,  of  the  walrus 
in  South  Carolina,  are  good  evidence  of  an  arctic  cli- 
mate at  the  edges  of  the  ice-covered  areas,  but  not  of 
a  general  low  mean  temperature  of  the  arctic  zone  as 
a  whole. 

If  the  Glacial  Age,  however,  was  really  one  of  uni- 
versal arctic  cold,  it  may  have  been  also  one  of  uni- 
versal antarctic  heat.  When  Canada  was  buried  under 
ice,  the  now  concealed  antarctic  continent  may  have 
been  a  land  of  the  fig  and  the  grape,  crowded  with 
animal  life. 

This  is  the  picture  drawn  by  Mr.  Croll,  the  inventor 
of  an  astronomical  cause  for  the  phenomenon  under 
review.  The  ellipticity  of  the  earth's  orbit  not  being 
constant,  there  recur  periodic  times  when  the  earth 
approaches  to  within  eighty  millions  of  miles,  and  re- 
cedes to  one  hundred  and  ten  millions  of  miles  from  the 
sun.  When  at  such  a  time  of  maximum  orbital  elonga- 
tion, the  nutation  of  the  earth's  axis  turns  the  north 
pole  away  from  the  sun  at  the  apogee,  many  extra  cold 


326  THE  THYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.       [LECT. 

winters  and  extra  hot  summers  must  follow  each  other 
in  succession.  Those  who  support  Mr.  Croll's  hypoth- 
esis calculate  on  an  accumulation  then  of  the  annual 
winter's  cold  in  excess  of  the  accumulation  of  annual 
summer's  heat,  for  covering  the  north  slowly  with  ice. 

Mr.  Alfred  llussel  Wallace  in  his  "  Island  Life " 
adopts  this  view  in  a  modified  form,  but  lays  more 
stress  upon  concurrent  changes  of  land-  and  sea-areas. 
Others  see  greater  difficulties  in  the  way  of  accepting 
it  arising  from  a  fact  which  presses  most  upon  the 
attention  of  geologists  :  viz.  the  absence  of  geological 
evidence  of  recurring  glacial  ages.  Recently  indeed 
pre-Cambrian  glaciation  has  been  noticed  in  Scotland  ; 
and  there  are  marks  of  glaciation  of  a  Permian  age. 
But  other  recurrences  have  not  been  noticed  ;  whereas 
at  every  21,000  years  of  the  history  of  the  globe  the 
phenomenon  should  have  left  its  traces. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause  of  this  state  of 
things  in  the  last  ice  age  several  thousand  years  have 
passed  (some  would  have  it  10,000,  others  200,000) 
without  the  repetition  of  any  such  flagrant  departure 
from  the  order  of  sunlight  and  solar  heat  which  Earth 
enjoys ;  and  many  thousand  more  will  probably  roll  by 
without  disturbance  to  the  human  race  from  this  capital 
but  obscurely  comprehended  cause.  Whatever  destiny 
the  race  is  to  have  will  be  accomplished  in  full  before 
the  improved  spectroscopes  and  thermopiles  of  the 
future  shall  have  detected,  much  less  measured,  a  sec- 
ular diminution  of  favor  in  that  royal  countenance  by 
the  grace  of  which  all  earthly  animated  things  continue 
to  live  and  move  and  have  their  beginning. 

The  meteorological  future  of  man's  dwelling-place 
wears  no  sinister  aspect  when  regarded  from  the  stand- 
point of  those  who  ascribe  the  glacial  age  to  alterations 
in  the  proportion  or  relative  positions  of  the  areas  of 
land  and  sea.  These  areas  have  remained  practically 
unchanged  since  long  before  the  dawn  of  monumental 
human  history ;  and  that  means  at  least  ten  thousand 
years.  Therefore,  for  ten  thousand  years  to  come  the 
mountains,  plains,  great  rivers,  and  lines  of  sea-coast  in 
all  countries,  and  the  shoals  and  islands  of  the  sea,  will 


Xrn.]        THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.  32T 

probably  continue  to  be  represented  in  the  charts  of  the 
distant  future  as  they  are  on  our  best  maps  now ;  and 
mankind  will  continue  to  work  out  the  problem  of  its 
destiny  on  virtually  the  same  slate  which  is  already  so 
covered  with  demonstrations  of  the  past. 

Considering  then  the  sun  as  fixed  in  its  resolution  to 
shine  and  warm,  the  present  continents  as  fixed  in  their 
places,  forms,  and  altitudes,  and  the  water-basins  of  the 
globe  as  changeless  and  inexhaustible  resources  for  the 
ever  shifting  and  sliding,  ascending  and  descending  at- 
mosphere, there  is  no  fear  that  the  early  or  the  later  rains 
shall  fail  for  the  husbandman,  that  the  great  trades 
shall  cease  to  blow  for  the  sailor,  or  that  the  sunrise 
and  sunset  shall  ever  be  less  inspiring  to  the  lover  of 
the  beautiful.  Deserts  will  remain  desert,  and  fertile 
regions  continue  to  be  populated ;  mountains  will 
always  bear  forests,  and  great  cities  continue  to  be 
built  along  the  sea. 

But  storms  will  also  always  be  in  order,  and  local 
hurricanes  and  extraordinary  waterfalls  from  the  sky 
and  uncommon  wide-spread  frosts  or  heats,  causing 
bodily  distress  and  loss  of  wealth  to  individuals,  or  to 
whole  communities ;  inundations  and  avalanches  in 
moantain  valleys,  a,long  great  rivers,  and  upon  the  sea- 
coast  ;  tidal  waves  generated  by  earthquakes ;  all  dan- 
gerous to  the  life  and  happiness  of  man. 

But  as  man  has  been  a  helpless  prey  to  these  calami- 
tous gesticulations  of  his  mother  earth  in  past  times 
because  ignorant  of  their  cause  and  meaning,  of  the 
times  to  expect  and  the  safeguards  to  oppose  to  them, 
in  future  he  will  learn  the  premonitions  of  their  ap- 
proach, and  fearlessly  provide  for  his  own  safety.  This 
is  the  promise  of  the  new  science  of  Meteorology. 

Since  William  Blasius,  after  a  study  of  the  West 
Cami)ridge  tornado  in  1849,' proposed  to  Joseph  Henry 
in  1851  the  plan  of  a  meteorological  Signal  Service  sys- 
tem, and  Lorin  Blodget  made  the  first  trial  of  one  by 
telegraph  for  two  mouths  in  1852,*  and  the  Smithsonian 
Institution    actually   accomplished    it   by   distributing 

*  Proc.  Am.  Phil.  Soc.  1876,  p.  205. 


328  TriK  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.       [LECT. 

thermometers,  barometers,  anemometers  and  rain-gauges 
to  volunteer  observers  at  various  points  between  the 
Mississip[)i  and  the  seaboard,  first  France,  then  England, 
then  the  United  States  have  established,  government 
Bureaus  of  Meteorology.  Belgium,  Switzerland,  Italy, 
Germany,  Austria  and  Russia  have  imitated  their  exam- 
ple ;  and  now  Sweden  is  preparing  to  extend  the  area 
of  observation  by  erecting  one  observatory  at  the  head 
of  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia,  and  another  in  a  deserted  ref- 
uge on  Spitzbergen.  Three  times  a  day  the  weather  of 
all  Europe  and  North  America  is  telegraphed  to  cen- 
tral observatories  and  the  data  charted  and  redistrib- 
uted by  mail.  Storm  signals  are  raised  at  all  points  of 
coming  danger  to  shipping ;  news  of  any  sudden  rise 
in  rivers  is  telegraphed  to  points  below,  in  advance  of 
the  descending  freshet.  Every  cold  wave  that  crosses 
the  Rocky  Mountains  is  heralded  before  it  can  reach 
Chicago  and  St.  Louis,  and  its  course  considered  and 
reported,  so  that  the  people  of  Canada  and  the  Eastern 
States  may  be  prepared ;  or  if  it  be  moving  southward, 
the  planters  of  the  south  may  protect  their  crops. 
When  the  tremendous  meteor  has  left  our  coast,  its 
time  of  probable  arrival  in  Great  Britain  is  telegraphed 
to  Liverpool,  to  warn  all  colliers  and  fishing  boats  of  its 
coming;  and  every  step  of  its  subsequent  career  is 
noted  and  recorded  until  lost  sight  of  beyond  the 
Euxine  on  its  way  to  the  highlands  of  Persia. 

From  Jamaica  to  Ottawa,  from  San  Francisco  to 
Sydney,  from  Lisbon  and  Algiers  to  within  208  of  the 
north  pole,  and  to  the  Indian  Ocean,  a  thousand  trained 
observers  report  three  times  a  day  how  the  winds  are 
blowing  and  whether  the  sun  shines,  the  rain  falls  or 
the  snow  drifts ;  the  height  of  the  air  above  them,  and 
the  heat  of  the  air  around  them. 

A  century  hence  —  the  United  States  territory  sus- 
taining a  population  of  200,000,000  souls, —  Mexico 
having  received  an  overflow  of  50,000,000  English- 
speaking  whites, —  the  Soutii  American  savannahs  illus- 
trated by  half  a  dozen  commonwealths  as  large  and  as 
civilized  as  any  of  our  Northern  States, —  Cape  colonists 
occupying  southern  Africa  northward  to  the  Zambezi, 


XIII.]         THE  PHVSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.  329 

—  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia  regenerated  and  refurnished 
by  the  energy  of  Franks  with  wealthy  cities  connected 
by  railways  with  all  the  world, —  the  Ottoman  empire 
under  Greek  and  Austrian  rule, —  the  Russian  steppes 
illuminated  by  the  sciences  and  enriched  by  the  arts, — 
India  irrigated  and  China  reformed, —  a  century  hence, 
the  thousand  trained  observers  of  atmospheric  physics 
will  have  become  a  hundred  thousand,  and  from  innu- 
merable localities,  equally  distributed  over  land  and 
sea,  hourly  bulletins  will  be  concentrated,  to  be  reflected 
through  the  universal  press  upon  the  whole  human 
race;  —  bulletins  not  merely  of  the  movements  of  the 
surface  air,  but  of  the  upper  currents  of  the  atmosphere ; 
for  every  favorable  Alpine  summit  will  be  crowned 
with  an  observatory,  and  trial  balloons  will  be  regularly 
set  adrift  from  the  plains. 

Then  too  will  be  detected  and  charted  those  invisible 
streams  of  fertility  by  which  the  greater  part  of  the  ani- 
mal and  vegetable  worlds  are  generated  and  regener- 
ated ;  of  disease  by  which  human  populations  are  deci- 
mated ;  of  the  smokes  and  dusts  which  compose  a 
notable  portion  of  the  sediment  in  lake  and  ocean  beds, 
and  so  much  of  the  natural  manure  of  forest  and  prairie. 
Mankind  will  be  instructed  how  to  engross  their  hab- 
itations on  wholesome  places,  and  how  to  purify  the 
atmosphere  of  cities  from  noxious  vapors.* 

But  the  largest  future  profit  to  accrue  to  the  race  from 
a  universal  and  perpetual  study  of  the  air  may  be  best 
summed  up  in  the  phrase  ''a  true  theory  of  storms  for 
the  use  of  sailors,"  the  rudiments  of  which  we  already 
unmistakably  possess ;  but  which  when  well  perfected 
for  all  sea-surfaces  and  sea-coasts  will  benefit  in  many 
ways  the  ever-enlarging  fleets  of  ships  and  steamers,  and 
their  future  thousand-fold  expanded  living  freight,  f 

In  Physics  what  wonderful  discoveries  have  rewarded 
experimenters  since  the  first  application  of  the  galvanic 
current  to  the  production  of  mechanical  movements  by 

*  See  Blasitis  on  the  Connection  of  Meteorology  with  Health  in 
Proceedings  Amer.  Philos.  Soc.  1875,  p.  667. 

tSee  Blasius  "On  Storms,"  187 5. —  Proc.  Am.  P.  S.  1876,  p.  198. 


330  THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.       [LECT. 

Joseph  Heiiiy  at  Princeton  in  1840 !  The  telegraph 
system  of  Morse,  followed  by  the  writing  telegraph  of 
House,  followed  in  its  turn  by  methods  of  relaj'  and 
duplication,  and  still  later  by  the  marvellous  invention 
of  the  phonograph  and  now  of  the  still  more  curious  and 
promising  phototelephone,  will  certainly  be  extended 
into  all  parts  of  that  habitable  world  which  it  already 
encircles  with  its  aerial,  subterranean  and  submarine 
wires.  The  most  distant  centres  of  business  are  already 
brought  within  a  few  hours'  reach  of  each  other ;  the 
prices  of  money,  bonds,  commodities  of  all  kinds,  are 
regulated  by  instantaneous  conversation  in  all  the  lan- 
guages in  Christendom :  travellers  find  themselves  as 
well  supported  and  insured  against  disaster  thousands 
of  miles  from  home  as  in  their  own  offices ;  the  term 
foreigner  will  lose  its  prime  significance ;  unwarrant- 
able or  capricious  insurrections  become  impossible ; 
criminals  can  no  longer  feel  impunity  from  arrest 
whichever  way  they  fly;  the  lost  can  be  found,  the 
truant  reclaimed,  the  impostor  gazetted  in  advance; 
and  every  new  experiment  at  association  with  political, 
social  or  religious  ends  in  view  must  become  more  easy 
and  complete.  The  dismembered  widely  scattered 
body  of  Osiris  has  been  gathered  together  by  this  Isis 
of  physical  science,  and  now  first  truly  begins  to  live 
a  divine  life.  Christendom  is  unified ;  and  its  senti- 
ments, its  plans,  its  energies  so  concentrated  by  tele- 
graphic intercommunication,  that  nothing  on  a  grand 
scale  will  be  attempted  hereafter  except  under  the 
guidance  of  such  a  discussion  by  all  governments,  by  all 
the  moneyed  syndicates,  by  all  classes  of  men  of  science 
and  of  business,  as  must  surely  result  in  the  best  choice 
of  methods  and  means,  at  the  least  possible  outlay  of 
the  capitalized  wealth  of  the  world.* 

*  The  three  telephone  companies  of  Paris  have  just  been  consoli- 
dated into  one,  and  place  given  in  the  sewers  for  wires  enough  to 
serve  fifteen  thousand  subscribers,  through  tea  connected  central 
offices,  girls  b^  day  and  boys  by  night  shifting  the  connections  so  as 
to  answer  the  subscribers'  calls  to  be  placed  in  communication  with 
each  other.  Branch  companies  and  similar  systems  at  Marseilles, 
Lyons,  and  Bordeaux  are  already  in  working  order.  The  navy  has 
portable  wires  for  practice  and  tlie  array  will  be  handled  by  wire. 


Xni.]         THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.  331 

Geographical  maps  are  intended  either  to  inform  or 
misinform  society.  When  they  lie,  they  lie  with  the 
extraordinary  force  of  all  dramatic  action  as  compared 
with  verbal  statement. 

The  nine-foot  map  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Ship 
Canal  Company,  for  instance,  published  in  1850,  ex- 
hibited one  of  the  most  impracticable  of  canal-routes  as 
so  clear  of  obstacles,  that  the  world  has  wondered  why 
the  work  was  not  commenced;  a  level  river  valley;  a 
large  lake ;  six  locks  up  and  six  locks  down, —  the  Pa- 
cific is  reached.  But  in  fact  Lake  Nicaragua  lies  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-eight  feet  above  the  Pacific  ocean  and  is 
separated  from  it  by  a  range  of  active  volcanoes.  Berg- 
haus'  great  atlas  shows  twenty-eight  on  a  line  three  hun- 
dred miles  long  ;  with  eleven  more  extinct ;  that  is,  one 
volcano  for  every  twenty-one  miles  ;  and  one  of  the  num- 
ber, five  thousand  high,  seated  in  the  centre  of  the 
lake.  In  1709,  1809,  and  1835  the  Cosaguina  shook 
the  whole  Isthmus,  on  which  it  deposited  a  layer  of 
ashes  three  and  one-half  feet  deep.  The  French  Gov 
ernment  survey  map  of  1858  represents  the  proposed 
canal  with  its  locks  built  into  the  side  of  an  active 
volcano  with  a  double  crater  ten  thousand  feet  high ! 

Topography  has  improved  its  methods  of  representa- 
tion in  modern  days ;  not  as  pictures  pleasing  to  the 
eye  and  stimulating  to  the  imagination  (for  no  such 
beautiful  maps  are  now  executed  as  those  of  Italian 
geographers  published  two  centuries  ago)  but  as  accu- 
rate delineations  of  real  objects  on  the  earth's  surface  in 
their  true  proportions  of  size  and  relative  positions  to 
each  other  and  to  the  sea-level.  The  addition  of  con- 
tour-curves (showing  equal  heights  above  tide)  to  the 
more  recent  maps  has  been  of  immense  value  to  several 
branches  of  science,  especially  to  civil  engineering  and 
geology.  The  latest  mapping  method  substitutes  these 
for  the  old  hachures  for  marking  slope,  and  obtains  all 
the  relief  which  the  eye  demands  by  reinforcing  them 
on  the  shady  side. 

The  invention  of  underground  contour-ciiTves  twenty 
years  ago  is  now  coming  into  use  for  mining  engineer- 
ing purposes,  and  opens  a  future  prospect  to  the  geol- 


332  THE  PHYSICAL  DESTIISTY  OF  THE  RACE        [LECT. 

ogist  of  boundless  extent  and  rich  promise.  The  time 
must  come  when  every  mineral  bed  and  vein,  every  up- 
throw and  down-throw,  anticlinal  and  synclinal,  will  be 
thus  represented  pari  passu  with  mining  operations; 
and  civil  engineers  will  follow  the  example  of  their 
brethren  of  the  other  caste  in  constructing  underground 
contour  maps  of  the  rock-bedding  in  such  tunnels  as 
that  which  penetrates  the  Mt.  Cenis,  to  show  its  folded 
structure, — that  of  the  Innspruck  and  Botzen  line,  to 
show  its  core  of  dolomite, —  and  that  beneath  the  Eng- 
lish Channel  to  show  its  fault. 

Geodesy  is  the  application  of  mathematics  and  geome- 
try to  the  actual  measurement  of  the  earth  ;  —  first,  for 
the  determination  of  its  true  figure,  which  is  not  per- 
fectly globular,  nor  regularly  oblate,  but  slightly  bat- 
tered like  an  old  billiard-ball,  or  an  apple  in  the  first 
stages  of  decay ;  —  secondly,  for  the  determination  of  the 
exact  edges  of  the  dry  land,  and  the  exact  place  of  every 
watercourse  ;  —  and  thirdly,  for  the  exact  height  above 
sea-level  of  every  object  attracting  man's  attention  or 
affecting  his  interests — hill-tops  and  valley-beds,  steep 
cliffs  and  sloping  plains,  houses  and  other  monuments  of 
history. 

The  ordnance  maps  of  Great  Britain  are  on  the  scale 
of  an  inch  to  the  mile,  and  of  six  inches  to  the  mile, 
so  that  every  man's  house,  barn  and  stable  in  the  king- 
dom can  be  referred  to  on  the  paper.  The  Belgian  map 
is  equally  precise.  The  Swiss  map  shows  every  foot- 
path in  the  Alps;  and  guides  are  unnecessary,  if  the 
traveller  be  hardy,  fearless  and  judicious.  The  coast  of 
the  United  States  is  nearly  all  mapped  in  the  most 
minute  manner;  and  the  chain  of  the  great  lakes;  and 
belts  of  inland  triangulation  are  being  carried  from  east 
to  west  across  the  continent.  Arcs  of  great  circles  have 
been  measured  in  South  America  and  across  Europe  on 
the  meridian  of  Paris,  and  through  Russia.  Germany 
and  Austria  are  extending  the  area  of  this  kind  of 
work;  Spain  has  lately  been  connected  with  Algeria, 
so  that  future  surveys  in  Africa  will  have  a  base  in 
common  with  the  European  measurements.  The  tri- 
angulation of  India  has  been  going  on  for  years. 


Xlir.]         THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.  333 

To  all  this  must  be  added  the  Admiralty  charts  of  the 
sea  bottom  on  all  coasts  which  the  ships  of  Christendom 
approach ;  and  a  beginning  has  been  made  for  a  general 
measurement  of  the  ocean  depths,  and  a  complete  map 
of  the  ocean  bottom  in  both  hemispheres.  Mr.  Patter- 
son has  just  published  a  map  and  a  model  of  the  curi- 
ous basin  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  How  it  would 
rejoice  the  heart  of  the  geographer  to  get  a  glimpse  of 
the  maps  to  be  published  in  the  year  1981 !  How 
many  questions  wait  for  their  solution  until  those  maps 
be  constructed !  Yet  geodesy  will  be  as  little  ex- 
hausted then  as  now,  and  the  maps  of  A.D.  2081  and 
A.D.  2181  will  differ  from  each  other  in  nothing  but 
completeness. 

It  is  not  however  merely  the  completeness  of  our 
knowledge  of  what  is  now  that  these  centuries  of 
geodetic  work  will  effect.  The  repetitions  which  will 
be  needful  —  made  needful  by  the  growth  of  instruments 
in  precision,  and  by  the  extension  and  use  of  telegraph 
lines  for  time  observation  — will  subserve  quite  a  differ- 
ent purpose.  Changes  in  river  courses  and  coast  lines 
have  already  been  observed ;  two  or  three  centuries 
of  comparative  maps  can  alone  show  the  law  and 
rate  of  these  changes.*  While  successive  land  maps 
will  determine  the  term  of  England's  coal  trade,  suc- 
cessive coast  maps  will  exhibit  the  rate  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  island  by  the  waves  in  some  places,  and  the 
growth  of  deltas,  swamps  and  shoals  in  others.  The 
height  of  no  one  alpine  summit  is  as  yet  told  with  abso- 
lute truth ;  but  by  repeated  surveys  not  only  a  close 
approximation  to  absolute  truth  will  be  reached  for  the 
top  of  Mt.  Blanc,  Monte  Rosa,  the  Jungfrau,  the  Wet- 
terhorn,  and  hundreds  of  other  summits,  but  a  compari- 
son of  heights  so  obtained  in  one  century  with  heights 
obtained  by  remeasurements  in  the  next  century  and  in 
the  next,  will  show  which  are  the  rising  and  which  the 
settling  portions  of  the  Alps;  and  how  and  at  what 
rate  the  warping  movements  range,  which  produce  such 

*  See  the  map  of  MarseiUes  in  the  tune  of  the  Romans  and  now 
(Bull.  Soc.  de  Geog.  Paris,  1874)  showing  how  the  Mediterranean 
has  worn  away  the  cliffs. 


334  THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.       [LECT. 

earthquakes  as  those  of  Agram  in  1880.  And  when 
this  knowledge  is  far  enough  advanced  in  all  the  prin- 
cipal alpine  districts  of  the  earth,  a  comparison  of  data  so 
obtained  will  teach  much  respecting  the  larger  changes 
which  the  form  of  the  globe  is  always  and  everywhere 
undergoing. 

In  the  course  of  many  centuries  men  will  come  to 
know  whether  the  oceans  make  great  oscillations  from 
the  south  pole  to  the  north  and  back  again ;  and 
whether  archipelagos  be  emerging  from  the  Pacific  and 
Indian  seas,  forerunners  of  wide  continents,  now  under 
water ;  or,  whether  they  be  the  disappearing  remnants 
of  ancient  continents  once  inhabited  by  aboriginal  men. 

Chemistry  and  Mineralogy  have  peculiar  blessings  in 
store  for  the  human  race. 

Previous  to  the  discovery  of  oxygen  by  Priestley 
Alcliemy  was  the  rudest  cookery  of  the  inorganic  con- 
stituents of  the  ground.  Now  it  is  one  of  the  fine 
arts.  In  future  it  will  furnish  the  mathematics  of 
Metaphysics. 

No  other  science  has  so  uplifted  the  right  reason 
of  man.  No  other  science  has  been  equally  successful 
in  teaching  men  to  think.  No  other  science  deals  so 
entirely  with  the  Invisible,  underlying  and  informing 
the  visible  creation.  No  other  science  so  habitually 
feels  by  calculation  and  thinks  with  the   imagination. 

As  out  of  Alchemy  sprang  the  noblest  poetic  fancy 
and  the  purest  moral  sentiment  of  the  middle  ages,  so 
out  of  Chemistry  has  been  born  all  that  is  honest,  con- 
scientious, patient  and  prudent  in  the  physical  sci- 
ences of  our  own  day.  There  is  no  such  check  to  the 
vague  imaginings  and  reckless  generalizations  of  na- 
tural philosophers,  of  all  kinds,  as  that  to  which  they 
have  been,  are  and  more  and  more  shall  be  subjected  by 
the  ever-enlarging  scope  and  deep-reaching  interpreta- 
tion of  the  intimate  nature  of  things  of  this  purest  and 
sternest  of  all  the  spirits  that  represent  the  wisdom  of 
God  in  nature. 

Are  there  any  limits  to  human  knowledge  ?  Is  there 
any  limit  to  the  world's  mysteries  ?  What  kind  of  a 
being  will  the  chemist  of  a  thousand  years  hence  be  ? 


XriT.]         THE  PHYSICAL  DESTIXY  OF  THE  RACE.  335 

But  the  answer  to  these  questions  is  of  interest  only 
to  the  individual  man.  The  interest  which  the  mill- 
ions sliall  take  in  the  chemistry  of  the  future  relates 
to  the  quantity  and  variety  of  the  accumulating  appli- 
cations of  chemistry  to  the  comfort  and  convenience 
of  life.  These  cast  their  shadows  before.  Their  kind 
and  scope  at  least  can  be  predicted. 

By  chemistry  mankind  is  destined  to  discover  and 
put  to  use  a  great  number  of  economic  processes  which 
will  first  cheapen  and  then  make  abundant  the  raw 
materials  of  the  arts. 

Hitherto  all  that  men  have  manufactured  they  have 
manufactured  by  tedious,  laborious,  painful,  wasteful, 
and  consequently  costly  methods.  Waste — infinite, 
irrecoverable  waste  has  characterized  all  crafts.  Mate- 
rial was  plenty,  because  tools  were  bad,  and  the  rich 
alone  could  be  supplied.  When  tools  improved  and 
goods  became  abundant  and  cheap,  the  crowd  de- 
manded, and  the  raw  material  grew  scarce.  The  prob- 
lem of  the  future  is  to  wrest  from  nature  enough  stuff 
to  manufacture  for  all.  The  solution  of  the  problem  is 
to  be  sought  for  in  a  reduction  of  waste  to  its  possible 
minimum.  In  this  search,  as  in  all  other  intellectual 
paths,  chemistry  takes  the  lead. 

The  chemist's  whole  education  consists  in  detecting 
residua ;  recovering  what  has  tried  to  elude  observation 
and  escape ;  committing  every  element  under  bail  to 
keep  the  peace  and  behave  itself.  Chemists  are  the 
gendarmerie  of  the  manufacturing  world.  To  them  has 
been  consigned  the  task  of  deciphering  all  the  adulter- 
ations of  nature  and  art ;  the  qualities  of  the  raw  ore, 
and  of  the  metal  when  brought  to  nature ;  of  the  soil 
and  the  manures  it  needs;  of  salts  and  infusions,  and 
the  drugs  made  from  them ;  of  oils,  and  their  soaps  and 
acids ;  of  medicinal  plants  and  their  principles ;  of 
paints  and  bleaching  powders ;  yeast  and  the  bread  it 
raises ;  in  a  word  every  article  of  food  which  man 
grows,  every  fibre  out  of  which  man's  clothing  is  woven, 
every  stone  man  builds  with,  every  fuel  he  burns,  the 
clay  of  his  potteries,  the  sand  and  alkalies  which  he 
turns  into  glass,  the  slag  which  flows  from  the  furnace 


836  THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.       [LECT. 

or  flies  from  the  anvil,  and  the  iron  which  is  rolled  into 
rails.  Every  dnig-shop  has  a  chemical  laboratory  be- 
hind it.  Every  iron  furnace  keeps  a  chemist  in  employ- 
ment. Chemical  experts  swarm  in  the  great  mineral 
districts.  Even  justice  acquits  or  condemns  the  mur- 
derer according  to  chemical  analysis.  The  assayer 
accompanies  the  explorer  into  unknown  regions ;  and 
great  movements  of  population  will  be  governed  in 
the  future,  as  they  have  been  in  the  past,  by  miueral- 
ogical  observation  confirmed  by  a  verdict  from  the 
laboratory. 

But  all  this  is  nothing  to  the  effect  of  chemistry  on 
the  future  world  by  reason  of  its  inventive  faculty. 
While  the  resident  chemist  guides  the  miner  and  guards 
the  furnace-man  in  the  hourly  progress  of  their  ordi- 
nary work,  he  is  devising  modifications  of  the  process  of 
production,  and  inventing  transformations  of  useless 
refuse  into  useful  materials  for  other  industries,  the 
sale  of  which  may  diminish  the  cost  of  work,  and  insti- 
tute some  new  and  flourishing  production.  As  the  years 
and  centuries  roll  on,  the  waste  of  raw  material  will  be 
eliminated  from  human  industry,  and  the  cost  of  every 
manufactured  article  will  be  reduced  for  the  benefit  of 
every  class  of  consumers ;  the  percentage  of  return  for 
labor  will  be  increased ;  time  will  be  saved ;  and  savage 
metliods  will  be  replaced  by  scientific  methods  all  over 
the  earth. 

In  Mineralogy  —  the  transcendental  aspect  of  which 
is  of  no  interest  to  us  here  except  for  its  bearing  upon 
the  growth  of  the  human  mind  —  and  especially  in 
Metallurgy  (which  is  Mineralogy  practised  under  the 
instruction  of  chemistry)  what  has  just  been  said  finds 
its  illustration. 

With  an  unfailing  abundance  of  two  minerals,  the 
destiny  of  man  is  made  safe.  With  a  hollow  coal  fire 
and  an  iron  bar  a  man  can  arm  himself  against  all  ene- 
mies and  equip  himself  for  every  kind  of  useful  work: 
—  with  an  axe  to  hew  the  forest,  a  chisel  to  cut  through 
the  rock,  a  shovel  to  level  the  road,  a  ploughshare  to  till 
the  soil,  nails  to  build  his  house,  axle  and  springs  to 
facilitate  the  transport  of  his  goods. 


XIII.]         THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.  337 

The  uprising  of  the  old  forest  from  its  sleep  of  ages 
underground,  glorified  into  bituminous  and  anthracite 
coal,  was  like  the  reappearance  of  the  sun  in  a  new- 
morning  of  human  history,  calling  an  awakened  world 
to  fresh  existence  and  universal  activity.  The  use  of 
coal  was  confined  at  first  to  the  immediate  vicinity  of 
the  outcrop  of  the  bed.  In  course  of  time  small  quan- 
tities began  to  be  carried  on  mules  and  in  canoes  to 
smithies  at  some  distance.  When  the  canal-lock  was 
invented  at  Viterbo  in  1481,  and  the  French  canals  of 
Briare  (1G05-1642),  Orleans  (1675),  Languedoc  (1667- 
1681)  and  others  on  the  Continent  had  led  the  wav  for 
the  Duke  of  Bridgewater's  first  English  canal  (1758) 
and  the  English  canal-mania,  which  lasted  forty  years, 
the  foundation  was  laid  for  enormous  colliery  opera- 
tions and  a  general  use  of  the  mineral  fuel.  The  rail- 
way-mania of  the  present  century  was  a  repetition  of 
the  canal-mania  in  a  more  intense  form ;  and  its  effect 
upon  the  annual  production  of  coal  has  been  to  carry 
it  up  from  ten  million  tons  (in  1800)  to  one  hundred 
and  thirty-six  million  in  1877.  Nine-tenths  of  this  is 
consumed  in  Great  Britain ;  the  remaining  tenth  is  sent 
in  ballast  to  all  parts  of  the  world. 

The  present  annual  production  and  use  of  hard  and 
soft  mineral  coal  in  the  United  States  is  supposed  to  be 
between  sixty  and  seventy  millions  of  tons,  shared  be- 
tween blast-furnaces  and  rolling-mills,  railway  locomo- 
tives, steamboats,  steam-mills,  gas-works,  and  city  stoves 
and  grates. 

The  production  of  anthracite  was  350  tons  in  1820 ; 
850,000  in  1810  ;  8,500,000  in  1860 ;  and  about  25,000,- 
000  in  1880.  In  spite  of  the  enormous  waste  in  mining 
and  screening  anthracite  (a  waste  of  at  least  60  per 
cent,  at  present)  there  is  enough  in  the  ground  to 
furnish  fifty  millions  of  tons  per  annum  for  use  for  250 
years.*  But  the  deposits  of  semi-bituminous  and  bitu- 
minous coal  in  the  United  States  are  of  such  extent,  so 
undisturbed  and  so  near  the  surface,  that  an   annual 

*P.  W.  Sheafer,  Proc.  Am.  Asso.  F.A.S.,  Saratoga,  1879. 


338  THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.       [LECT. 

consumption  of  200,000,000  tons  is  possiblt-  for  10,000 
years.* 

It  is  supposed  that  the  total  consumption  of  mineral 
coal  will  in  the  present  year  exceed  300,000,000  tons ; 
and  that  the  extension  of  the  railway  system,  the  expan- 
sion of  steamship  commerce,  and  the  planting  of  steam 
manufactures  in  India  and  China,  will  enlarge  this  con- 
sumption to  a  thousand  million  tons  in  less  than  half  a 
century. 

The  mechanical  power  of  one  pound  of  good  coal 
equals  that  expended  in  one  day  of  human  hand-work. 
Most  of  the  coal  raised  from  under  ground  is  burned 
for  warming  mankind,  cooking  food  and  making  iron. 
But  if  only  one  ton  of  coal  in  every  ten  be  consumed 
for  steam  machinery,  Great  Britain  is  at  present  using  a 
machinery  power  equal  to  one  year  of  labor  performed 
by  100,000,000  men ;  and  the  Uuited  States  is  using  a 
machinery  power  of  40,000,000  men.  Since  the  male 
adult  population  of  the  United  States  is  about  10,000,000, 
coal  adds  the  labor  of  four  machine  men  to  that  of  every 
living  man  in  the  Republic ;  and  as  England  has  a  male 
adult  population  of  about  5,000,000,  her  coal  places 
beside  each  living  man  a  machine  of  twenty-man  power. 

These  machine-men  indeed  have  to  be  built  and 
nursed  and  served ;  they  eat  and  drink  voraciously,  re- 
quire sleep,  and  are  improved  by  education  (or  inven- 
tion); must  be  well  housed  and  carefully  and  expensively 
dressed ;  demand  the  services  of  menials  and  a  police ; 
even  produce  offspring.  But  these  are  in  mature 
power  from  the  moment  of  their  birth ;  and  the  larger 
and  mightier  the  machine  the  less  service  in  proportion 
it  requires.  It  indulges  in  no  expensive  amusements, 
never  strikes  for  higher  wages,  has  no  blue  Mondays, 
is  always  at  its  post,  and  always  obedient  to  the  touch 
of  the  commanding  hand  —  a  conscientious,  punctilious, 
loving  slave,  like  Ariel  waiting  on  Prospero. 

The  population  of  the  world  may  therefore  be  said  to 
be  changing.     A  new  race  of  anthropoid  machines  has 


*  See  general  estimate  in  Geol.  Penn.,  1858,  p.  1017. 


1 


XIII.]         THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.  339 

come  into  existence  ;  and  its  rate  of  increase  is  so  rapid, 
and  so  little  subservient  to  any  known  Malthnsian  law, 
that  a  propliecy  may  be  ventured :  viz.,  that  in  one  or 
two  centuries  from  this,  while  the  human  race  will 
remain  substantially  and  as  a  whole  about  as  numer- 
ous as  it  is  now,  the  man-power  (steam-enofine)  popula- 
tion of  the  world  will  exceed  it  ten  to  one.  And  per- 
haps the  greatest  of  all  the  problems  of  the  future  is : 
who  will  own  control  of  this  man-power?  how  will  its 
distribution  be  effected?  how  far  will  it  supplant  rather 
than  supplement  the  work  of  living  men?  and,  above 
all,  what  will  be  the  consequent  increase  of  human  idle- 
ness on  the  one  hand  and  of  human  luxury  on  the 
other?  For  it  is  evident,  that,  could  coal-power  be 
equally  distributed  to  all  homes,  a  man's  necessary  day 
labor  could  easily  be  reduced  from  ten  hours  to  one. 
But  it  is  equally  evident  that  steam  manufacture  will 
always  concentrate  itself  on  spots  of  the  earth's  surface, 
leaving  a  large  majority  of  the  human  race  indifferent 
spectators  of  its  effects. 

Another  important  feature  of  the  case  must  be  re- 
garded. Apart  from  the  first  and  current  expenses  of 
mining  and  machinery,  the  theoretical  power  in  coal  is 
never  obtained ;  not  one  tenth  of  it ;  the  rest  is  wasted 
in  transmission,  through  boiler  plate  and  boiling  water, 
crank,  cog  and  strap.  Part  of  the  future  of  civilization 
is  to  be  determined  by  the  gradual  elevation  of  the  per- 
centage of  power  left  available. 

But  even  with  the  small  available  percentage  of  coal- 
power  remaining  unchanged,  the  rapidly  increasing 
annual  production  of  coal  mines,  and  the  steadily 
rising  rate  of  increment,  the  accumulation  of  work-power 
at  the  disposal  of  working  man  towers  before  the  philo- 
sophic imagination  like  mountain  masses  before  the  eye 
of  a  traveller  from  the  plains. 

No  possible  discoveries  of  new  motive  powers  can 
prevent  the  perpetual  use  of  coal,  any  more  than  the 
discovery  of  steam  power  has  caused  the  use  of  the 
horse  to  be  forgotten.  "Wood  will  always  be  burnt; 
coal  will  always  feed  steam-engines  and  gas-holders, 
whether  electric  motors  and  galvanic  lights  be  success- 


340  THE   PHYSICAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.     [LECT. 

ful  iuventions  or  not ;  and  the  same  a  thousand  years 
hence  as  now. 

Iron  too  can  never  be  deposed  from  its  royal  throne 
among  the  metals.  Nothing  can  replace  it.  Its  produc- 
tior^  will  always  be  on  the  increase.  Its  applications 
will  be  ever  and  ever  more  numerous,  various  and  apt. 
To  the  lake-dwellers  of  Switzerland  it  was  more  pre- 
cious than  gold  or  bronze,  for  fine  threads  of  it  are  in- 
laid as  ornamentation  on  sword  handles  preserved  in 
the  museum  at  Berne.  The  Roman  soldiers  conquered 
Gaul  merely  because  their  sword-blades  being  of  iron 
would  not  bend;  they  killed  their  opponents  while 
these  were  stopping  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  to  re- 
straighten  their  bronze  swords  across  their  knees.  The 
followers  of  Odin  settled  Europe  and  enslaved  the 
stone-age  populations  by  virtue  of  the  iron  they  brought 
with  them  from  the  land  of  the  Chalibes.  Iron  made 
the  conquests  and  colonies  of  Spain  and  Holland, 
France  and  England  possible  in  both  hemispheres. 
Iron  alone  makes  universal  international  communica- 
tion possible.  Whether  it  require  two  centuries  or  ten, 
the  globe  is  forging  for  itself  as  complete  a  shirt  of 
chain  mail  to  cover  itself  from  head  to  foot  withal  as 
ever  Knight  Templar  wore.  The  meshes  become  ever 
finer  and  closer.  The  tissue  spreads  further  and  fur- 
ther, from  district  to  district,  from  province  to  province, 
from  empire  to  empire.  No  desert  will  remain  exempt 
from  the  iron  network.  Each  mountain  vale  will  re- 
ceive in  time  its  proper  branch-line.  Every  mountain 
spur  that  hinders  travel  will  be  pierced.  The  bridge 
has  become  iron ;  the  station-house  iron ;  the  tele- 
graph post  will  be  iron ;  the  locomotive  is  iron ;  the 
freight  car  is  of  iron  in  whole  or  in  part;  the  ship 
becomes  iron  and  Elisha's  axe-head  floats. 

In  prehistoric  days  iron  was  more  costly  than  gold, 
because  made  by  hand  in  a  hole  in  the  ground.  It  is  so 
made  by  African  savages  and  Hindu  blacksmiths  yet. 
In  Roman  days,  the  forge  was  planted  at  the  head  of  a 
ravine  and  the  blast  was  made  by  the  wind  hurtling  up 
the  gorge.  In  the  middle  ages  the  mountain  stream 
was  diverted  so  as  to  fall  through  a  vertical  wooden 


XIII.]        THE    PHYSICAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.  341 

pipe,  and  with  the  moist  air  thus  driven  downwartl  and 
led  off  sidewise  the  Catalan  forge  was  blown.  Then 
the  German  high  oven  was  invented,  and  cast  iron  was 
bestowed  as  a  divine  boon  to  the  race,  inaugurating  the 
real  age  of  iron.  Higher  and  higher  rose  the  furnace 
stack  until  it  towered  120  feet  into  the  air,  with  coked 
coal  for  its  fuel,  Scottish  blackband  and  Yorkshire  iron 
stone  for  its  burden,  and  air  heated  to  1000°  Fahrenheit 
forced  into  the  tiojcre  holes  under  a  pressure  of  16  lbs. 
to  the  incli  from  twin  blowing  engines  costing  $100,000 
to  construct. 

The  production  of  cast  iron  in  the  United  States  in 
1880  reached  4,295,41-4  net  tons,  (40  per  cent,  more  than 
in  1879,  the  year  of  largest  production)  made  by  446 
furnaces  in  blast  out  of  701  in  existence. 

In  1830,  the  first  casting  of  anthracite  pig  iron  was 
made,  and  in  1881  its  amount  reached  1,807,651  tons; 
1,950,205  tons  were  smelted  with  bituminous  coal  and 
coke;  and  537,558  tons  with  charcoal.  Of  spiegeleisen 
20,000  tons  were  made  for  the  Bessemer  works. 

The  mere  surplus  exports  of  iron  and  steel  from  the 
British  works  amounted  in  1879  to  2,610,000,  and  in 
1880  to  3,560,000  tons. 

Bessemer  iron  was  first  successfully  and  regularly 
made,  in  1861,  by  Mr.  Brown  at  St.  Seurin,  a  few 
leagues  north  of  Bordeaux.  In  1863  the  new  process 
was  established  in  Sweden,  while  the  great  inventor 
was  still  struggling  to  perfect  it  at  Sheffield,  and  it  had 
been  tried  and  abandoned  at  Liege,  at  Creuzot,  along 
the  Rive  de  Gier  and  at  Allier.  In  1863  Peter  Turner 
made  his  first  blast  at  Leoben.  In  1872,  120,000  tons 
of  Bessemer  iron  were  made  in  the  United  States,  and 
1,20:1173  in  1880.  In  1872,  94,070  tons  of  steel  rails 
were  rolled  in  the  Bessemer  works  of  the  United 
States  ;  in  1880,  917,592  tons.     (See  page  354.) 

In  twenty  years,  all  the  main  railway  lines  of  Amer- 
ica have  been  relaid  with  Bessemer  low  steel  rails  made 
at  Troy,  at  Bethlehem,  Harrisburg,  Johnstown,  Pitts- 
burg, Cleveland,  Chicago  and  St.  Louis;  and  in  Europe 
mammoth  cannon  and  the  plates  of  iron  clads,  the  axles 
and  tires  of  railway  rolling  stock,  and  a  thousand  other 


342  THE    PHYSICAL   DESTINY    OF    THE    RACE.      [LECT. 

shapes  are  produced  of  this  new  form  of  iron,  the  cost 
of  which  at  first  was  $160  a  ton  and  is  now  $40. 

This  wonderful  revolution  in  the  manufacture  of 
malleable  iron  for  cast  iron  has  not  however  set  aside 
the  puddling  and  boiling  furnaces ;  strange  to  say,  it 
has  not  destroyed  the  charcoal  high  stack  furnace. 
But  it  pours  an  incalculably  larger  flood  of  ingot  iron 
upon  the  markets  of  the  world,  and  has  multiplied  and 
enlarged  the  rolling-mills,  while  stimulating  the  devel- 
opment of  iron  mines,  and  spurring  the  exploitation  of 
coal  to  its  upmost  speed. 

Considering  now  that  iron  ore  is  the  most  plentiful 
of  all  minerals  except  coal,  and  absolutely  ubiquitous 
in  the  earth's  crust,  what  prospects  stretch  before  us  in 
the  future  whichever  way  we  look !  On  iron  all  true 
civilization  depends  for  its  material  power  of  work; 
and  henceforth  iron  can  be  produced  without  stint  or 
limit  in  all  lands,  by  all  nations.  Surely  the  greatest 
chapter  of  Man's  Destiny  as  a  worker  has  been  opened 
for  our  reading. 

With  Bessemer  iron  all  the  rivers  of  earth  will  be 
spanned ;  all  public  edifices  will  be  made  fireproof  with 
iron  beams  and  concrete  floors;  archives  will  be  safe; 
museums  and  libraries,  hospitals  and  asylums,  ware- 
houses and  their  wharves  will  become  permanent; 
cities  will  be  supplied  with  water,  gas  and  condensed 
air  for  motive  service ;  and  telegraph  and  telephone 
wires  will  be  protected  in  iron  pipes  and  culverts. 
Already  the  oil  fields  of  Penns3dvania  are  netted  with 
thousands  of  miles  of  iron  tubing  for  the  transporta- 
tion of  petroleum,  and  pipe  lines  traverse  hill  and  val- 
ley to  bring  the  precious  fluid  to  the  cities  on  the  sea- 
shore. What  more  iron  is  to  do  for  man  who  can  pre- 
dict? But  this  is  certain,  that  the  modern  methods  of 
producing  this  metal  at  a  low  cost  and  in  infinite 
abundance  will  expand  the  capacities  of  all  the  arts 
and  extend  the  tools  and  symbols  of  civilization  to  the 
remotest  provinces  of  the  world. 

But,  although  Coal  and  Iron  are  the  Alpha  and 
Omega  of  all  the  future,  the  rest  of  the  mineral  alpha- 
bet, the  metals  and  bases  and  salts,  will  play  their  parts 


Xni.]        THE    PHYSICAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   KACE.  343 

aud  share  in  the  eiilargeiuent  of  liuman  activity.  For 
every  ore  chemistry  is  providing  better  processes  of 
treatment,  cheapening  cost  and  enhancing  quantity ; 
diminishing  waste  and  suggesting  new  uses.  Many 
another  Stassfurt  will  be  discovered;  and  when  Green- 
land has  ceased  to  furnish  its  criolyte,  the  alkalis  will 
be  obtained  in  still  greater  quantities  from  other  earths 
in  many  lands. 

It  is  said  that  the  total  value  of  finger  rings  worn  by 
the  people  of  the  United  States  amounts  to  $50,000,000. 
Luxury  and  pleasure  must  increase  with  every  other 
quality  of  civilized  life.  Jewels  will  be  sought  for, 
even  when  banks  and  saving  institutions  have  set  aside 
their  chief  use  —  that  of  an  easy  and  safe  investment  in 
times  of  bad  government  and  in  places  of  personal 
danger.  Nothing  that  man  has  once  esteemed  will 
man  ever  abandon ;  and  the  destiny  of  the  human 
race  as  a  whole  is  what  only  the  destiny  of  a  few  has 
in  past  times  bee-n :  for  every  human  being  to  make 
himself  pleasing  in  his  own  sight. 

The  Geological  future  of  man's  destiny  is  not  confined 
to  what  the  races  will  suffer  or  enjoy  by  geological 
changes  in  the  face  of  the  earth ;  but  will  chiefly  con- 
sist of  man's  discoveries  in  the  underground  and  the 
uses  thereof. 

Upon  the  great  blank  canvas  of  profound  ignorance 
lasting  thousands  of  years,  the  few  first  bold  strokes  of 
the  coming  picture  arrest  the  eye  and  excite  the  liveli- 
est admiration. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  last  century,  a  few  thinkers 
began  to  see  that  the  globe  was  an  organic  being  and 
had  grown.  In  the  early  part  of  the  present  century, 
an  examination  of  its  skin  was  timidly  attempted  here 
and  there.  Less  than  fifty  years  ago,  the  States  of 
Europe  and  many  of  the  United  States  of  America 
commenced  extensive  geological  surveys,  based  upon 
geodetic  meridian  line-  and  coast-surveys;  directly  in 
the  interest  of  land  ownership  and  commerce,  but  in- 
directly stimulating  to  all  departments  of  physical 
science. 


344  THE   PHYSICAL   DESTINY   OF   THE  RACE.     [LECT. 

Once  embarked  on  this  voyage  of  discovery,  there 
was  no  return  to  port.  Once  establislied,  this  cam- 
paign against  the  closed  fortresses  of  Nature,  a  large 
corps  must  be  well  armed,  provisioned  and  transported. 
Hence  the  erection  of  one  observatory  after  anotlier, 
one  laboratory  after  another,  one  museum  after  another, 
each  equipped  with  more  and  more  powerful  and  accu- 
rate apparatus.  Apparatus  reacted  on  observers,  and 
observers  on  apparatus,  constantly  improving  and  mul- 
tiplying each  other.  Every  day  now  beholds  the  inven- 
tion of  some  finer  method  or  piece  of  machinery,  like 
Langley's  photometric  balance  by  which,  at  last,  the 
radiant  heat  of  the  moon  is  really  proved  and  really 
measured.* 

The  early  work  of  the  British,  French,  Swiss,  Belgian, 
German,  Russian  and  American  surveys  was  of  the 
nature  of  a  systematic  reconnoissance.  In  the  course  of 
the  next  twenty  years  enough  became  known  to  allow 
of  the  subdivision  of  continental  areas  into  provinces 
and  districts.  Renewals  and  reorganizations  of  surveys 
which  had  been  stopped  took  place.  Schools  of  mines 
became  numerous,  and  geology  with  its  adjunct  sciences 
educated  for  its  work  a  multitude  of  young  and  fresh 
minds.  The  mere  publication  of  work  done  became 
a  world  of  literature  in  itself.  Improvements  in  litho- 
graphy and  photography  multiplied  maps,  sections,  and 
j)lates  of  fossil  forms  indefinitely.  The  new  science  of 
microscopic  rock-analysis  was  added  to  geological  chem- 
istry, and  the  employment  of  chemists  in  the  labora- 
tories of  Bessemer  iron-works  doubled  the  number  of 
iavestigators  and  quadrupled  the  amount  of  geologi- 
cal survey  work. 

Meanwhile  the  new  applications  of  steam  to  industry 
and  commerce  made  vast  demands  on  geology,  first  for 
coal  and  then  for  iron  ;  and  government  surveys  became 
insignificant  in  comparison  with  the  restless  and  ubiqui- 
tous activity  of  an  army  of  experts  employed  by  incorpo- 
rated companies  of  private  individuals.     The  knowledge 

*  First  announcement  of  this  substitute  for  Melloni's  pile,  Am. 
Jour.  S.  &  A.,  March,  1881. 


XUI.]       THE   PHYSICAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.  345 

thus  obtained  did  not  at  first  become  the  property  of 
the  world ;  only  its  fruits  showed.  But  knowers  were 
multiplied  and  drilled ;  and  these,  naturally  desirous  of 
public  credit  for  the  work  they  did,  began  to  publish 
first  their  crude  and  afterwards  their  maturer  memoirs 
under  the  auspices  of  a  multitude  of  new  lyceums,  so- 
cieties and  associations  which  they  had  combined  to 
organize,  being  themselves  excluded  from  the  venerable 
societies  of  science  because  as  yet  unknown.  From 
these  now  well-known  new  geologists,  mineralogists, 
metallurgists,  chemists,  physicists,  botanists  and  zoolo- 
gists, the  old  societies  have  been  recruiting  their  ranks, 
thinned  by  death,  and  infusing  thus  into  their  old  veins 
new  blood. 

The  accidental  discovery  of  great  reservoirs  of  petro- 
leum, the  accidental  discovery  of  vast  quantities  of  gold 
in  the  California  gravels,  the  accidental  discovery  of  a 
multitude  of  rich  silver  veins  in  Colorado  —  three  dis- 
coveries following  each  other  at  short  intervals  of  time 
—  while  they  introduced  the  greatest  possible  changes 
in  the  movements  of  emigrant  mankind,  and  caused 
the  founding  of  new  States,  the  building  of  great 
cities,  the  conversion  of  Australasia  into  an  English- 
speaking  Christendom,  the  settlement  of  South  Africa, 
the  readjustment  of  the  values  of  all  articles  of  trade, 
food  included,  and  a  new  renaissance  of  fine  art  —  ex- 
erted another  and  more  lasting  influence  upon  science 
in  converting  whole  populations  of  handworkers  into 
wide-awake  observers,  investigators,  scholars  and  teach- 
ers of  each  other,  collectors  of  all  that  is  curious,  and 
energetic  explorers  of  every  omitted,  overlooked  acces- 
sible or  inaccessible  nook  and  cranny  of  the  surface  of 
the  -earth. 

Out  of  this  new  class  of  mankind,  numbered  already 
by  the  hundred  thousand,  come  inventors  without  end  ; 
and  among  all  their  inventions  the  Diamond  Drill  is  for 
geology  the  most  important ;  and  is  certainly  destined 
to  inaugurate  the  future  study  of  the  as  yet  untouched 
profounder  depths  of  the  underworld;  to  limit  for  us 
the  real  areas  of  the  coal  measures;  to  discover  beneath 
destitute  regions   an  underground   plenty  of  iron ;   to 


346  THE  PHYSICAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.     [lECT. 

settle  for  us  the  problem  of  internal  heat ;  and  per- 
haps to  detect  for  us  the  cause  while  measuring  the 
direction,  the  amount  and  the  rate  of  crust  move- 
ments. 

To  imagine  what  the  geological  destiny  of  man  is 
sure  to  be  a  century  hence,  it  is  only  necessary  to  com- 
pare the  mining  industries  of  the  Roman  world  with 
ours. 

What  was  the  stowing  of  a  dozen  tons  of  the  pre- 
cious metals  on  a  trireme  at  Cadiz  for  a  month's  hard 
sailing  and  rowing  to  Ostium,  compared  to  the  lading 
of  a  million  tons  of  anthracite  on  Reading  railway 
steam  barges  at  the  Richmond  yard  in  Philadelphia, 
for  a  two  or  three  days'  run  to  New  York,  Boston  or 
Norfolk?  What  was  the  packing  of  amber,  bronze 
swords,  gold  torques,  amulets,  gems  and  a  few  small 
iron-blooms  along  the  Appian  and  Flaminian  Ways, 
compared  to  the  roar  of  two  hundred  freight  trains 
per  day,  carrying  100,000  tons  of  ores  and  coals,  iron 
tools,  furniture,  dry  goods,  grain,  cattle,  groceries,  fruit, 
books  and  newspapers,  in  two  weeks  across  the  Amer- 
ican continent. 

Or,  take  the  rate  of  increase  of  our  length  of  rail- 
way lines,  of  the  number  of  mines  of  all  kinds,  and  of 
the  expansion  of  smelting  works  and  finishing  mills 
and  factories  for  the  last  20  years,  and  project  that 
rate  forward  for  a  single  century ;  then,  calculate  the 
amount  of  exploration  and  exploitation  to  which  all 
that  must  give  rise  —  the  geographical,  topographical 
and  geological  surveying,  ever  on  the  increase ;  the 
penetration  of  vast  stagnant  populations  by  these  irre- 
sistible impulses  to  knowledge  and  industry ;  and  the 
merging  of  such  populations  in  wide-awake,  laborious, 
curious,  inventive,  efficient,  affluent  Christendom,  broad- 
ening the  arena,  multiplying  the  games  and  enhancing 
the  prizes  ;  —  what  a  world  it  will  be  ! 

Then  will  the  Diamond  Drills  revel  in  the  deep. 
Governments  will  pay  the  price  for  profound  research. 
Instead  of  single  holes,  pairs  will  go  down,  by  which 
the  structural  sections  can  be  made.  Rows  of  bore- 
holes will  be   drilled  across  an  entire  kingdom.     Not 


XIII.]       THE   PHYSICAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.  347 

a  stratum  will  be  missed.  Usually  shallow,  they  will 
at  iutervals  be  sunk  to  great  depths,  to  test  underly- 
ing old  topographical  surfaces.  Here  and  there  a 
single  one  will  be  put  down  2,000  or  8,000  metres, 
even  if  it  cost  a  fortune  and  the  work  should  last 
for  many  years. 

Such  will  be  the  geological  spirit  of  the  coming  age. 

A  recent  book,  entitled  "  The  Ground  of  the  City  of 
Berlin,"  by  Herr  Lossen,  published  at  the  cost  of  the 
municipality,  gives,  as  the  result  of  316  borings  in  and 
around  the  city,  the  most  precise  description  yet  at- 
tempted of  the  nature,  order  and  extent  of  the  vari- 
ous strata  composing  the  Diluvium  of  North  Germany; 
and  the  depths  and  values  of  the  various  water-bearing 
planes  to  which  wells  must  be  sunk,  or  holes  bored,  for 
public  or  private  use.* 

Every  city  of  the  future  will  execute  such  a  work  for 
itself;  and  not  for  itself  alone,  but  for  an  entire  province. 

The  future  career  of  Natural  History^  and  the  influ- 
ence of  its  two  branch-sciences  Botany  and  Zoology  — 
recent  and  fossil  botany  —  recent  and  fossil  zoology  — 
upon  the  future  welfare  of  the  human  race,  can  be 
easily  signalized. 

The  task  before  these  sciences  in  the  future  is  two- 
fold:— 

1.  To  continue  and  complete  the  catalogue  of  living 
species, — to  obtain  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  habits 
and  habitats  of  each, —  to  compare  them  in  various 
regions, —  to  make  out  their  migrations, —  to  estimate 
the  value  of  physical  influences  tending  to  change 
their  forms,  or  modify  their  organs, —  and  to  discover 
such  passages  from  one  variety,  species  or  genus  over 
into  another:  — 

2.  To  continue  and  complete  (if  it  be  not  possible  ever 
to  exhaust)  the  catalogue  of  fossil  forms, —  to  obtain 
the  whole  range  of  mere  varieties  in  each  species, —  to 
eliminate  from  each  genus  all  species  which  by  passing 

*  See  Schriften  Phys.  (Econ.  Gess.,  Konigsburg,  1879,  Sitzung, 
p.  46. 


348  THE   PHYSICAL  DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.     [LEOT. 

insensibly  into  other  closely  allied  species  cease  to  be 
distinctive  species, —  to  fill  up  the  gaps  between  genera, 
—  to  multiply  indefinitely  the  number  of  synthetic 
types, —  to  correlate  and  weave  in  together  extinct  and 
recent  faunas  and  floras,  by  which  lacunse  in  the  one 
set  are  supplied  from  the  other, —  to  establish  the  true 
order  of  probable  evolutions  of  types  and  their  eleva- 
tions and  degradations, —  to  search  for  fossil  representa- 
tions or  indications  of  tlie  structure  of  organs,  and  to 
connect  these  plausibly  or  by  necessary  logical  infer- 
ence with  their  several  circumstances  of  climate,  food 
and  warfare. 

The  machinery  for  this  study  can  hardly  be  very  dif- 
ferent from  that  in  use,  since  the  microscope  has  been 
brought  to  its  present  perfection  and  deep  sea  dredg- 
ing and  trawling  has  become  a  familiar  art.  Again, 
the  question  of  the  past  and  present  has  been  one  of 
quality ;  that  of  the  future  will  be  one  of  quantity. 
The  reconnoissance  has  been  made ;  the  detailed  survey 
will  go  on  for  a  thousand  years. 

But  the  practical  side  of  Natural  History  presents 
itself  with  a  grand  aspect. 

Formerly  man  dwelt  in  the  forest,  and  among  the 
beasts,  as  a  hostile  intruder,  or  as  a  barely  tolerated 
guest. 

In  course  of  ages  man  formed  alliances  with  some  of 
the  animals  and  some  of  the  plants,  and  grew  powerful 
enough  to  wage  successful  warfare  against  the  forest 
and  its  denizens. 

In  modern  days,  man  has  established  his  government 
over  all  living  things ;  replants  the  forest  which  he  has 
cut  down ;  cultivates  poisonous  herbs  for  medicine  or 
pleasure  ;  preserves  wild  beasts  for  the  exercise  and  dis- 
cipline of  his  own  mental  and  corporeal  faculties ;  and 
feeds  the  most  useless,  noxious  and  savage  creatures, 
merely  to  sate  a  vulgar  curiosity,  or  to  advance  the 
refinement  of  science. 

In  future  ages,  the  animal  and  vegetable  worlds  will 
pay  him  back  a  rich  reward  for  Avhat  he  now  does  heed- 
lessly, wantonly,  or  scientifically  alike.  From  the  cost 
of  human  life  in  experimental  cooking,  in  the  hunt  of 


XIII.]         THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.  349 

lions  and  bears  on  land  and  of  whales  and  sharks 
at  sea,  in  the  exploration  of  arctic  snows  and  tropical 
deserts  to  fill  the  museums  of  Christendom  — from  the 
outlay  in  Botanical  and  Zoological  Gardens,  experi- 
mental farms  and  parks  of  acclimation,  government 
seed  distributions  and  fish  commissions  —  the  first  divi- 
dend of  a  mighty  income  has  already  been  received. 
No  investment  the  human  race  ever  made  will  satisfy  it 
better  in  a  business  point  of  view. 

Hitherto  the  spontaneous  exercise  of  the  creative  en- 
ergy inherent  in  the  planet  sufficed  to  distribute  and 
arrange  its  animate  inhabitants,  man  included.  The 
destiny  of  man  is  that  of  the  heir  to  an  aged  monarch 
who  gladly  abdicates  the  throne.  Mankind  will  rear- 
range its  own  residence  first,  and  then  regulate  the  sub- 
ordinate place  and  mode  of  life  for  every  tree  that 
waves,  every  seed  that  falls,  every  beast  of  the  field  and 
fowl  of  the  air,  and  even  for  those  lawless  vagrants  of 
the  pathless  sea  on  whom  nature  seems  to  have  be- 
stowed a  charter  of  absolute  independence. 

The  effects  of  man's  improved  civilization  upon  the 
cereals  and  tubers  must  always  be  limited  by  the  num- 
ber of  arable  acres  circumscribed  by  mountain-ranges 
and  the  sea-coasts,  over  which  human  wit  and  will 
have  no  control.  But  within  these  limits  chemical 
geology  will  assign  the  proper  planting  for  the  proper 
soil ;  and  scientific  agriculture  will  assign  the  minimum 
of  right  enrichment  of  the  soil  for  producing  the  maxi- 
mum of  food  for  men  and  cattle. 

Scientific  arboriculture  will  not  only  weed  out  the 
useless  woods  and  multiply  the  useful ;  replace  the 
waste  of  present  forests,  and  repress  wanton  destruc- 
tion; but  will  protect  exposed  hill-sides  from  undue 
erosion,  and  the  inhabitants  of  valleys  from  ruinous 
debacles ;  while  it  will  provide  desert  belts  of  country 
with  rain  evaporated  from  stored-up  snow  and  artificial 
lakes.  The  irrigation  of  the  globe  will  employ  all  the 
resources  of  engineering  science,  when  these  shall  have 
been  once  set  free  from  the  miscalled  industries  of  war; 
and  food  will  pay  for  grooving,  when  all  the  natural 
avenues   of  water   transportation  have  been   rectified, 


350  THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.       [LECT. 

and  rendered  at  all  seasons  both  copious  and  safe,  by 
retaining  reservoirs  in  the  forest,  and  by  jetties  and 
dredged  channel  ways  along  their  open  courses  through 
the  plains. 

The  breeding  of  cattle  for  labor  and  for  food,  the 
selection  of  poultry,  the  use  of  counter  parasites  for 
parasitic  pests,  the  acclimation  of  varieties  from  other 
climes,  but  above  all  the  government  of  fish-breeding, 
on  the  grandest  scale,  for  inland  lakes,  for  rivers  and 
for  soundings  on  the  coasts — all  these  operations, 
already  successfully  begun,  will  become  the  work  of 
the  whole  world,  and  increase  the  supply  of  food,  and 
the  wholesome  occupation  of  the  millions,  beyond  our 
present  powers  of  computation. 

If  any  one  supposes  that  a  thousand  years  will  be 
enough  to  finish  all  this,  he  has  only  to  regard  a  globe 
and  note  these  facts: — 1.  That  human  population  is 
concentrated  on  a  few  limited  areas ; — 2.  That  the 
communications  between  food  and  hunger  have  not 
yet  been  completed; — 3.  That  the  entire  continent  of 
South  America  is  still  virtually  uninhabited  by  man, 
and  that  great  regions  of  North  America  are  also  to  be 
occupied;  —  and  4.  That  the  work  of  mutual  destruc- 
tion has  not  yet  ceased  over  the  whole  continent  of 
Africa  and  a  large  part  of  Asia.  For  the  first  thou- 
sand years,  civilization  will  be  occupied  in  securing 
itself  on  one-half  the  land,  and  preparing  its  ways  and 
means  by  water  for  afterwards  repressing  the  disorder 
of  the  other  half,  preparatory  to  its  reorganization  on 
the  basis  of  a  beneficent  commerce  and  a  permanent 
peace. 

The  discovery  of  the  potato,  of  tobacco  and  of  caout- 
chouc are  the  most  notable  in  modern  times  bearing 
upon  the  conditions  of  life.  The  commerce  in  Ameri- 
can grain  and  cattle  and  of  preserved  vegetables  bids 
fair  to  dispel  future  famines.  But  the  transport  of 
grain  has  always  been  a  marked  feature  of  civilization. 
The  difference  now  is  that  man  no  longer  migrates 
towards  food  —  food  comes  to  him  from  afar.  This 
will  do  much  for  rendering  populations  stable. 

The  destruction  of  the  American  forests  in  certain 


Xlir.]  THE  PHYSICAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE.  851 

districts  is  something  enormous.  For  example:  the 
president  of  the  Chicago  Lumber  Exchange  reported 
March  7,  1881,  that  the  receipts  of  lumber  at  Chicago 
during  1880  amounted  to  1,564,000,000  feet,  and  pre- 
dicted the  final  exhaustion  of  the  pine  forests  of  the 
country  in  twenty  j^ears.  White  pine  will  then  become 
extinct.  The  waste  of  pine  wood  in  Pennsylvania  has 
been  scandalous.  The  best  trees  only  were  taken  to 
market,  and  it  is  reckoned  that  not  more  than  one-tenth 
of  the  actually  standing  pine  forest  was  utilized ;  the 
rest  being  lost  for  the  use  of  man.  Had  the  Common- 
wealth watched  over  this  precious  treasure  committed 
to  its  care,  not  only  might  much  of  this  reckless 
destruction  have  been  avoided,  but  if  a  .law  had  been 
enforced  to  the  effect  that  for  every  pine  tree  felled  two 
young  trees  should  be  planted,  future  generations 
would  enjoy  a  natural  right  of  which  this  generation 
has  deprived  them. 

The  forestry  regulations  of  the  Old  World  must  in 
course  of  time  come  into  vogue  in  the  New,  and  indi- 
viduals must  be  taught  obedience  to  the  rules  of  public 
interest,  and  compelled  to  recognize  not  only  the  rights 
of  existing  societ}'-,  but  the  welfare  of  future  generations. 

The  United  States  laws  of  1873-74,  giving  160  acres 
of  government  land  free  to  persons  pledging  themselves 
to  plant  trees,  failed  in  operation  owing  to  the  imprac- 
ticable conditions  imposed  upon  the  planter.  Public 
sentiment  secured  their  general  evasion.  Railway  com- 
panies have  begun  to  plant  trees  along  their  lines,  and 
farmers  of  the  West,  pressed  by  private  necessity  and 
far  from  coal,  are  planting  largely.  In  Wales,  whole 
mountain-sides  have  been  made  nurseries  of  the  Norway 
larch.  There  are  now  Schools  of  Forestry  established 
in  France,  Germany,  Austria,  Russia,  Sweden,  Switzer- 
land, Italy  and  Portugal,  in  which  arboriculture  is 
made  a  science,  as  well  as  an  art,  and  governments 
offer  large  inducements  to  the  people  to  plant  waste 
lands.  The  German  Government  not  only  plants  all 
roads,  but  buys  up  all  private  lands  unfit  for  agricult- 
ure or  pasturage  to  establish  forests  on  them. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  will  in  time  learn 


352  THE   PHYSICAL   DESTINY    OF    THE   RACE.      [LECT. 

the  lesson  of  their  old  charcoal  iron-smelters,  that  it 
only  requires  20  years  to  rear  trees  fit  to  cut;  that  a 
careful  trimming  and  regular  succession  of  cutting 
grounds  will  secure  even  from  an  ordinary  farm  suffi- 
cient fencing  and  building  stuff,  and  fuel,  from  genera- 
tion to  generation ;  and  that  species  may  be  brought 
from  other  places  which  will  flourish  better,  grow  faster 
and  meet  the  local  necessities  more  exactly  than  the 
growth  which  stands  before  them. 

The  destiny  of  the  forest  is  to  disappear  before  the 
axe  of  the  pioneer  settlers  of  all  the  wild  regions  of  the 
earth.  The  destiny  of  the  prairie,  the  pampa,  the 
steppe  and  the  savanna  is  to  receive  a  cunningly  se- 
lected forest  from  the  hand  of  man.  This  process  of 
equalization  in  field  and  forest  will  imitate  the  proc- 
esses of  Nature,  by  which  the  mountains  are  being 
lowered,  and  the  lowlands  raised,  all  over  the  world, 
through  the  agency  of  countless  myriads  of  rivulets. 
In  the  end,  the  whole  earth  must  resemble  a  fair  garden, 
and  a  fertile  farm ;  the  very  desert,  condemned  geologi- 
cally to  eternal  sterility,  being  destined  to  its  own 
special  kind  and  degree  of  amelioration. 

Physiology^  Anatomy  and  Medicine  as  sciences,  pure 
or  applied,  regard  man  as  one  of  the  animal  races; 
but  it  has  already  appeared  that  their  final  conclusions 
cannot  be  reached  by  confining  their  researches  to  the 
human  frame.  The  health  or  sickness  of  man  is  now 
studied  in  close  connection  with  that  of  other  creatures; 
and  this  comparison  will  be  an  endless  occupation  of 
the  human  intellect  until  comparative  zoology  itself 
becomes  exhausted.  In  this  field  also  experimentation 
and  observation  supplement,  stimulate  and  check  each 
other.  The  age  of  empiricism  has  not  closed;  nor 
should  it  close  until  every  possible  trial  on  man's  con- 
stitution of  every  vegetable  and  mineral  reagent  shall 
have  been  thoroughly  made  and  intelligently  recorded 
and  compared. 

But  medicine  is  fast  resolving  itself  into  hygiene ; 
and  the  destiny  of  man  is  to  free  itself  as  completely 
from  medical  as  from  all  other  kinds  of  superstition. 


Xni.]        THE   PHYSICAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.  353 

Air,  water,  food,  sleep,  work,  pleasure  and  cleanliness 
are  destined  to  resume  the  pharmacopoeia  of  the  future. 

In  this  the  gain  will  be  again  one  of  quantity,  not 
quality.  No  man  of  future  ages  will  grow  taller  or 
stronger,  or  have  a  sounder  brain  or  liver,  than  thou- 
sands in  every  generation  have  already  had,  The  con- 
stant weight  of  the  earth  on  which  man  lives  determines, 
once  and  for  all,  the  me^^n  weight  of  male  men  at  150 
lbs.  and  the  mean  weight  of  females  at  120.  There  is 
no  changing  that,  whether  there  be  a  millennium  in 
view  or  not.  And  within  the  scope  of  just  so  much 
condensed  hydrocarbon-compounds,  and  no  more,  must 
be  located  all  the  bodily  organs,  none  of  which  can  be 
spared,  nor  their  number,  quality  nor  functions  increased 
or  improved.  Man  as  7nan,  is  already  and  always  has 
been  an  absolutely  perfect  creature.  His  destiny  is  to 
continue  to  be  the  same  perfect  creature  as  he  always 
has  been. 

But  7nan  the  individual,  and  woman  the  individual, 
realize  the  perfection  of  their  design  only  when  their 
individual  lots  are  cast  in  pleasant  places  and  under 
circumstances  favorable  for  enjojdng  their  goodly  heri- 
tage. What  we  are  to  expect  from  the  physical  sci- 
ences is  to  instruct  ever-increasing  numbers  of  human 
beings  in  hygiene  :  —  how  to  marry  suitabl}'" ;  how  to 
breed  safely ;  how  to  eradicate  hereditary  taints  of 
blood  from  their  offspring  in  infancy ;  how  to  give  their 
organization  free  play  to  perfect  itself;  how  to  guard 
their  adolescence  from  depravity ;  how  to  feed  and 
clothe  themselves  in  all  stages  of  their  mortal  career ; 
how  to  reform  the  maimed  and  restore  the  debili- 
tated; how  to  regulate  work  and  recreate  vigor  by 
sleep  and  amusement;  how  to  drain  and  ventilate 
the  dwelling-place,  and  how  to  provide  comforts  for 
old  age. 

In  a  word  the  Destiny  of  Mankind  is  to  realize  by 
the  thousand  and  by  the  million,  more  and  more  as 
time  rolls  on,  an  actual  approximation  to  the  perfect 
standard  of  healthy  activity  exhibited  hitherto  by  sin- 
gle individuals,  isolated  communities  or  favored  classes. 


354  THE    PHYSICAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE. 

Note  to  page  341.  The  statistics  of  the  English  iron  trade  are 
like  the  hands  upon  a  clock  to  the  thoughtful  student  of  human 
economics. 

The  latest  stroke  of  the  bell  rings  out  thus,  from  the  annual 
report  of  the  British  Iron  Trade  Association.  The  following 
table  shows  the  distribution  of  the  pig-iron  production  of  the  Uni- 
ted Kingdom  in  1871,  and  that  in  1880.  That  which  will  arrest 
the  reader's  eye,  will  be  the  enormous  increase  of  pig-metal  con- 
sumed now  in  making  Bessemer  and  Siemens  xteel :  — 

In  1871.  In  1880. 

Piq-iron,  total  made, 5,067,179(0/18.    7,741  ,(XK)  (ojw. 

Converted  into  wrought  iron 2,480,000    "        1,950,000 

"  "     Bessemer  steel 220,000    "        1,220,000 

"  "     Siemens  steel, 35,000    "  295,000 

"  "     tin-plate  iron, 120,000    "  265,000 

Applied  to  foundry  purposes,  etc.,  .    .    .    1,748,721    "        2,379,371 

Surplus,  exported, 1,057,458    "        1,631,629 

Total, 11,334,358    "      15,482,000 


LECTURE  XIV. 

THE    SOCIAL    DESTINY    OF    THE    KACE. 

History  is  the  poor,  imperfect,  distorted,  mistaken 
record  of  mau's  past  destiny. 

The  science  of  History  is  a  partially  successful  res- 
toration of  the  old  portrait  of  the  human  race,  with 
new  paints,  under  consultation  with  its  best  friends. 

Can  any  task  be  more  hopeless?  Oh,  it  is  not  at  all 
hopeless.  What  are  the  monuments  of  antiquity  but 
faded  photographs?  What  are  buried  statues  and 
steles,  buried  urns,  arms  and  tools,  but  family  records? 
What  are  dead  languages  but  fossiliferous  strata  in 
which  lie  safely  preserved  for  our  examination  millions 
of  words  and  grammatical  inflections  each  of  which  re- 
stores to  us  some  mental  conception  of  our  ancestors  ? 

The  analogy  of  the  present  will  explain  the  past. 
The  papyrus  of  Turin  is  in  a  much  more  sadly  dam- 
aged condition  than  is  the  book  of  human  history. 

To  collect  all  the  mutilated  leaves  of  this  book  and 
to  decipher  all  the  lines  of  writing  on  them  —  this  is 
part  of  the  future  destiny  of  man. 

The  revival  of  enthusiasm  for  the  study  of  Antiquity 
and  its  antiquities  in  the  midst  of  a  most  practical  and 
prosy  business  world,  and  in  the  face  of  a  whirlwind  of 
physical  science,  is  an  amazing  phenomenon.  Never 
did  human  beings  seem  more  wholly  engrossed  in  the 
present ;  yet  never  were  there  so  many  nor  such  zeal- 
ous antiquarians.  The  rush  forward  is  unprecedented, 
universal,  irresistible ;  yet  some  thousands  of  thinkers 
stand  with  their  backs  to  the  future  and  their  faces  to 
the  past,  letting  the  crowd  sweep  past  them.     The  out- 


356  THE    SOCIAL    DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.        [LECT. 

put  of  coal  and  iron  is  parodied  by  the  output  of  arrow- 
heads, coins,  papyri,  torsos  and  skeletons.  Troys  upon 
Troys  are  stoped  at  the  archseological  mine  of  Hissar- 
lik.  Mj'^cense  is  searched  for  the  armor  of  Agamemnon. 
The  excavations  at  Olympia  are  feeding  the  Museum  at 
Berlin.  Apollo's  shrine  is  found  spanning  a  chasm  on 
the  peak  of  Delos. 

Men  are  now  living  who  have  witnessed  not  only 
the  institution  of  free  government,  the  invention  of 
steam,  and  the  spread  of  the  telegraph,  but  the  re- 
covery of  the  lost  languages  of  Egypt  and  Assyria,  the 
uncovering  of  Nineveh  and  Zoan,  the  publication  of 
the  ancient  inscriptions  of  India,  the  translation  of  the 
Veds,  the  collation  of  the  folks-lore  of  a  multitude  of 
nationalities,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Philosophy 
of  History  on  a  permanent  critical  and  scientific  basis. 
Every  university  has  its  chairs  of  ancient  learning  from 
which  the  copious  restorations  of  past  human  life  are 
explained  to  eager  students  preparing  themselves  for 
fresh  expeditions  and  explorations  at  the  very  scenes 
of  old  events.  Historical,  Antiquarian,  Numismatic, 
Archseological,  Anthropological,  Oriental  societies  are 
springing  into  active  life,  not  only  in  the  national  capi- 
tals, but  in  the  smaller  cities  and  towns  of  all  coun- 
tries. Peripatetic  congresses  of  antiquarians  assemble 
at  some  different  centre  of  observation  each  successive 
year,  and  aj)point  committees  to  investigate  the  most 
promising  localities  of  the  neighborhood.  The  Roman 
army-itineraries  are  studied  for  the  purpose  of  recover- 
ing prsetorian  stations,  which  may  be  searched  for  tes- 
serae, carrying  trade-marks,  to  elucidate  ancient  manu- 
factures and  lines  of  commerce,  or  consular  names  and 
dates  to  rectify  chronology. 

A  topographical  survey  of  Palestine  is  accomplished 
by  the  English  Church  in  obedience  to  the  new  scien- 
tific sentiment  of  its  Deans  and  Bishops.  The  Sheriff 
of  Islam  grants  a  hateef  to  the  agents  of  the  British 
Museum  to  violate  the  graveyards  of  Kuyunyik  for  the 
purpose  of  discovering  in  the  palace-library  of  Assur- 
banipal  the  Babylonian  original  of  the  Hebrew  story  of 
the  flood. 


XIV,]  THE   SOCIAL   DESTINY    OF   THE   RACE.  357 

And  where  and  when  will  all  this  end?  Is  there  a 
natural  term  to  the  awakened  curiosity  of  man  regard- 
ing his  origin,  his  career  and  his  destiny?  Can  any 
limit  be  set  to  the  wealth  of  monumental  lore  concealed 
beneath  the  soil  of  plains  which  have  been  cultivated 
for  three  thousand  years  since  money  was  first  coined 
and  buried  on  the  approach  of  the  invader,  whose 
departure  left  a  track  of  smoking  ruins  behind  him,  or 
at  the  commencement  of  a  commercial  journey  from 
which  the  merchant  never  returned  ? 

Rome  has  been  burnt  to  the  ground  seventeen  times. 
Every  time  its  houses  fell  they  made  a  layer  of  tools 
and  furniture,  armory  and  statuary,  amphorae  and 
lamps,  jewels,  coins  and  tablets,  to  be  rediscovered  by 
modern  builders  of  high  houses  with  deep  founda- 
tions, by  street  contractors  driving  new  culverts,  and 
by  the  Accademia  dei  Lincei  with  its  sharp  eyes  and 
pricked-up  ears.  Every  now  and  then  a  subterranean 
church  of  St.  Clemens,  or  a  Marmoriura,  is  revealed; 
and  all  the  world  takes  railroad  or  steamboat  to  see  and 
admire  it.  Sometimes  even  in  London  and  Paris  a 
temple  to  Jupiter  or  a  bath-house  of  Julian  is  dis- 
covered.* 

Surely  as  the  number  of  antiquarians  increases  and  a 
Chinese  sentiment  of  ancestral  veneration  pervades  the 
west,  the  rage  of  discovery  will  only  burn  the  fiercer, 
and  the  right  knowledge  of  the  past  history  of  man- 
kind will  frame  itself  the  faster.  Upon  the  past  as  a 
high  place  of  vision  the  prophet  of  the  future  sets  his 
chair  and  writes  his  oracles. 

This  antiquarian  lore  is  looked  upon  of  course  by  the 
uninitiated  as  a  child's  play,  or  a  fool's  errand.  But 
in  the  laboratory  of  human  thought  it  is  proving  itself 
to  be  the  aqua  regia  of  reason,  the  universal  solvent  of 
popular  delusions,  by  which  the  education  of  nations 
will  be  purified  and  fixed.  Criticism  needs  precedent 
facts.  Without  these,  criticism  is  the  mere  caprice  of 
fancy  or  the  prejudice  of  ignorance.  Informed  by  a 
sufficiency  of  proven  data,  criticism  is  the  right  govern- 

*  The  table  plate  of  Valens  has  been  lately  found  on  the  field  of 
Hermann's  victory. 


858  THE   SOCIAL    DESTINY   OF   THE   KACE.        [LECT. 

ment  of  reason  dealing  with  what  most  nearly  concerns 
humanity  in  all  ages  past,  present  and  to  come.  Por- 
phyry set  himself  with  the  seriousness  of  Kant  and  the 
youthful  zeal  of  Paul  to  investigate  the  popular  relig- 
ion of  his  day,  and  wrote  his  great  work  "  On  the  Phil- 
osophy to  be  drawn  from  Oracles "  which  Eusebius 
quotes  so  largely.  But  his  undertaking  was  a  failure, 
both  for  himself  and  for  his  fellow-men,  as  he  himself 
sadly  confesses;  because  it  was  impossible,  he  says,  to 
verify  the  facts  which  he  had  set  himself  to  criticise. 
Until  arohceological  science  had  done  the  work  it  has 
done,  serious  men  of  modern  times  were  in  Porphyry's 
case.  Now,  enough  is  already  known  to  make  most  of 
the  popular  beliefs  suspected  ;  and  the  skilled  criticism 
of  past  facts,  conducted  by  men  bred  to  thinking 
according  to  the  rules  of  modern  science,  has  already 
greatly  modified  those  conceptions  of  God,  the  world, 
and  human  duty  which  are  habitually  entertained  and 
acted  on  by  modern  society. 

This  readjustment  of  the  ideas  of  mankind  must 
become  more  and  more  wide-spread  and  operative ; 
affecting  profoundly  the  status  of  every  community 
of  human  beings;  and  introducing  a  state  of  things 
throughout  the  whole  world,  a  thousand  or  several 
thousand  years  hence,  impossible  to  describe  by  antici- 
pation. 

One  thing  alone  is  plainly  visible  beforehand :  the 
Mythology  and  Ethnology  of  the  past  will  both  of 
them  pass  out  of  the  general  human  belief  and  mem- 
ory, and  be  replaced  both  by  Christian  views  of  the 
government  of  the  world,  and  by  an  international 
friendship,  in  the  mild  flame  of  which  all  antipathies 
of  race  must  be  slowly  cousumed. 

The  modern  science  of  IMj^thology  deals  onl}-  with 
historical  facts,  it  is  true  ;  and  is  itself  unimpassioned  ; 
believes  nothing  of  itself;  merely  collects,  collates, 
classifies  and  accounts  for  the  faiths  which  have  in  all 
past  ages  prevailed,  and  which  still  survive  as  prevalent 
motives  of  conduct  with  millions  of  men  and  women. 
But  in  doing  this  it  has  collected  and  will  continue  to 
collect   and   arrange   data  for    an    exalted,   far-seeing, 


XIV.]  THE   SOCIAL   DESTIKZ  OF   THE  RACE.  359 

fearless,  theological  criticism,  the  slayer  of  supersti- 
tions, and  the  herald  of  true  religion. 

The  science  of  Ethnology  is  making  the  same  kind  of 
passionless,  unprejudiced,  critical  study  of  the  past  con- 
duct of  the  race,  in  its  restless  migrations  backwards 
and  forwards,  by  sea  and  land ;  the  early  settlements 
and  centres  of  dispersions ;  its  lines  of  march  ;  its  inva- 
sions, extirpations,  overlappings  and  commixtures ;  its 
refuges  and  establishments;  its  ]nore  stable  subdivi- 
sions, and  their  present  arrangement ;  its  modifica- 
tions of  individual  or  collective  forms,  features,  colors, 
tongues,  occupations  and  ideas ; — in  a  word,  a  thorough 
study  of  the  old  and  the  new  meanings  of  two  terms : 
race  and  nation. 

What  is  as  yet  the  outgo  from  all  this  studious  learn- 
ing—  no  longer  merely  gathered  from  books,  or  by 
hearsay  of  uninstructed  travellers,  but  from  personal 
investigation  by  trained  men  of  science,  sent  into  every 
region  for  no  other  purpose,  furnished  with  all  possible 
facilities  for  a  successful  examination  and  discussion  of 
facts,  and  subjected  to  the  closest  cross-examination  at 
the  scats  of  universal  knowledge  on  their  return? 

It  is,  in  the  main,  this:  —  the  essential  unity  of  the 
human  race,  and  tlie  striking  similarit}^  of  its  principles 
and  methods  of  earthly  existence. 

When  it  is  observed  that  the  daily  press,  driven  and 
distributed  by  steam,  lets  nothing  escape  publication, 
but  compels  the  uninvestigating  multitude  to  hear  the 
report  of  all  investigation,  even  on  subjects  in  which  it 
feels  but  little  interest, —  when  one  notices  the  rapidly 
spreading  popular  taste  for  descriptions  and  pictures  of 
whatever  is  foreign,  strange  or  curious, —  when  a  cal- 
culation is  made  of  the  probable  increase  of  such  litera- 
ture and  of  the  number  of  its  readers, —  the  inference 
is  inevitable  that  a  sentiment  of  brotherhood  must  be 
generated  on  the  largest  scale,  and  must  become  a 
vital  source  of  sympathy  and  justice  between  nation 
and  nation  and  race  and  race  as  time  rolls  on. 

It  is  needless  to  quote  the  signs  of  this  fresh  and 
most  luxuriant  growth  of  geniality  and  cordiality  ob- 
servable in   the    newspaper   literature  of  Europe   and 


860  THE   SOCIAL  DESTINY   OF   THE  RACE.        [LECT. 

America;  in  the  new  codes  of  law;  in  recent  diplo- 
matic intercourse;  and  even  in  the  conduct  of  war. 
It  is  a  great  reality ;  it  will  become  a  still  greater 
reality.  It  already  hinders  mutual  wrong  and  destruc- 
tion. It  must  in  time  bring  in  an  age  of  at  least  com- 
parative peace  and  beneficence.  As  it  sinks  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  minds  of  men  and  spreads  from  province 
to  province  and  from  nation  to  nation  it  will  surely 
quench  the  quarrelsome  instinct  of  humanity  and  realize 
the  teachings  of  Jesus.  Whatever  be  the  fate  of  creeds 
determined  by  other  causes,  no  creed  can  live  in  the 
future  unless  it  drink  of  this  water  of  life.  However 
stubborn  the  barriers  of  language,  they  must  all  sooner 
or  later  open  their  gates  to  admit  one  element  of  lan- 
guage common  to  all:  terms  of  universal  fellowship 
and  good-will,  of  common  interest  and  mutual  sympa- 
thy. As  Comparative  Mythology  is  destined  to  re- 
adjust the  theology  of  the  world,  so  Comparative 
Ethnology  is  destined  to  re-adjust  the  international 
morality  of  the  world,  on  a  basis  of  its  stirpal  com- 
munity of  blood,  and  by  virtue  of  a  virtual  identity 
of  manners  and  rights,  amply  illustrated,  and  every- 
where proclaimed  and  understood. 

The  past  history  of  the  race  however  will  be  potent 
for  the  production  of  future  events;  and  the  present 
geographical  distribution  of  races  and  languages  and 
religions  and  governments  must  largely  determine  the 
succession  of  changes  which  future  historians  will  have 
to  record. 

The  first  great  event  of  the  future  will  be  the  taking 
of  Constantinople.  Twice  already  it  has  shown  itself 
to  be  the  lock  on  the  door  of  history.  Twice  the  key 
has  turned  and  fate  passed  through.  When  Constan- 
tine  transferred  to  it  the  imperial  throne,  the  Western 
world  died  under  the  blows  of  the  northern  barbarians. 
Taken  by  the  Turks  in  1453,  it  sent  back  life  to  the 
Western  world;  but  the  Eastern  world  sank  to  its  pres- 
ent condition  of  extreme  senility,  poverty  and  wretch- 
edness. Taken  by  Austria  or  Greece  in  the  next  cen- 
tury, as  it  is  sure  to  be,  when  the  present  strain  of 
European   diplomacy  snaps   at  the  touch  of  the   next 


XrV.]  THE   SOCIAL   DESTIXY   OF   THE   RACE.  361 

general  revolution,  the  East  will  renew  its  youth  like 
the  eagle,  and  a  new-world  era  will  begin.  Europe  is 
like  an  angry  boil  on  the  earth's  skin ;  it  must  soon 
burst ;  and  then  it  can  heal ;  and  the  fever  of  the  sur- 
rounding world  will  abate,  and  health  bo  established. 
As  long  as  the  mutual  jealousy  of  European  nations 
burns,  the  Turk  and  the  Arab  can  prevent  the  advance 
of  civilization. 

When  one  contemplates  the  site  of  Byzantium,  one 
comprehends  the  jealousy  of  London.  Here  the  East- 
ern and  Western  worlds  meet.  Towards  this  centre  of 
three  continental  areas  of  infinite  fertility  flow  the 
Rhone,  the  Nile,  the  Danube,  the  Dnieper  and  the 
Don.  A  wise  government  established  here  must 
absorb  Austria  and  Greece,  European  Russia,  Asia 
Minor,  Syria,  Arabia  and  Northern  Africa,  and  hold  in 
check  Italy,  France  and  Spain.  But  the  wise  govern- 
ment of  the  future  will  be  just  and  benevolent.  The 
absorption  will  be  confederative ;  the  centralization 
representative ;  the  process  peaceful  and  peace-assur- 
ing; the  consequences — a  revival  of  agriculture,  the 
restitution  of  woodlands,  the  amelioration  of  desert  cli- 
mates, security  for  trade,  the  expansion  df  commerce, 
the  reformation  of  nationalities,  and  the  restoration  of 
the  glorious  Eastern  World.  A  hundred  years  may 
bring,  a  thousand  years  will  not  be  too  long  to  wait 
for,  the  consummation  of  such  events. 

Sociology  is  the  science  of  Human  Society,  as  based 
on  property,  its  manufacture,  and  its  transfer  from 
hand  to  hand. 

This  science  wears  two  faces,  the  one  historical,  the 
other  theoretical. 

Historical  Sociology  ranges  with  Ethnology,  Mythol- 
ogy and  Philology,  as  a  critical  statement  of  the  basis, 
form  and  fruits  of  human  association,  in  the  family,  in 
the  clan,  in  the  tribe,  and  in  the  nation.  It  states  the 
facts  as  far  as  they  can  be  learned;  investigates  the 
causes  of  these  facts ;  and  compares,  contrasts,  classi- 
fies and  infers  from  them  what  is  probable  and  possible. 
'  Theoretical   Sociology   on   the    contrary  ignores    in 


362  THE    SOCIAL    DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.        [LECT. 

great  measure  the  past  procedure  of  the  race  and 
endeavors  to  devise  the  best  methods  for  constructing 
human  society  out  of  present  materials,  in  present  cir- 
cumstances, leaving  future  generations  to  care  for  their 
own  associations.  In  this  aspect  only  does  Sociology 
expose  itself  to  the  oft-repeated  and  damaging  charge 
of  not  being  a  science,  but  only  a  trade. 

Nothing  is  recognized  as  science  which  excludes 
experiment;  nor  can  any  science  produce  generaliza- 
tions acceptable  as  laws  of  nature  if  it  take  not  cogniz- 
ance of  the  whole  range  of  recorded  experimentation. 
Sociologists  degenerate  into  fanatics  unless  they  make 
their  science  comparative ;  studying  the  whole  past  in 
close  connection  with  the  whole  present  social  life  of 
the  race.  Society  has  been  an  experimental  kind  of 
existence  from  the  beginning,  and  is- so  still:  —  experi- 
ments in  manufacture,  experiments  in  commerce  and 
finance,  experiments  in  law  and  government,  and  ex- 
periments in  war.  And  these  experiments  have  been 
tried  so  repeatedly,  under  such  various  circumstances, 
and  with  such  long  trains  of  serious  consequences,  that 
it  is  idle  for  any  theorist  to  think  himself  a  statesman 
unless  he  be  well  versed  in  the  social  history  of  ages 
gone  by.  For  the  ages  gone  by  have  begotten  the  age 
we  live  in,  and  the  essential  qualities  of  mankind  do 
not  change  with  the  changes  of  surrounding  things. 
New  powers  are  offered  to  man  for  his  service ;  but 
man  will  always  take  advantage  of  enlarged  facilities 
for  accomplishing  his  same  old  favorite  purposes. 
Through  all  time  his  main  occupation  will  be  hand- 
work ;  his  chief  aim,  accumulation ;  his  most  valued 
pastime,  government ;  and  his  fiercest  passion,  war. 

But  handAVork,  with  or  without  machinery,  has  for 
its  main  object  the  production,  employment  and  accu- 
mulation of  property ;  government  is  chiefly  concerned, 
when  once  life  and  limb  are  made  secure,  with  the 
regulation  of  the  ownership  and  transfer  of  property ; 
and  war  would  lose  all  zest  were  there  no  property  to 
be  seized  or  destroyed. 

On  Property  therefore  Human  Society  has  always 
been  erected  and  maintained.     As  the  question:    Whdt 


^ 


XIV.]  THE   SOCIAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.  363 

is  Property?  governs  the  current  of  events,  so  the  ques- 
tion :  What  will  be  considered  Property  ivhcn  all  the 
zoorld  is  civilized  by  education?  must  receive  some  defi- 
nite answer  before  a  prophecy  of  Human  Destiny  can 
be  imac^ined. 

The  first  postulate  in  the  theological  story  of  the 
universe  is  the  eternal  reality  and  value  of  property. 
The  first  assertion  is  that  God  owns  the  world  which 
He  made,  and  therefore  can  do  what  he  likes  with  it. 

This  theological  maxim  has  been  encased  in  the 
corner-stone  of  the  foundation  of  every  edifice  of 
humane  society. 

Savages  and  civilized  agree  that  to  create  is  to 
possess;  whether  it  be  a  tool  or  a  weapon,  clothing 
or  ornament,  hut  or  canoe.  In  early  times,  a  wife  was 
captured  property,  a  child  personal  propert}',  sacred 
from  all  other  claimants.  The  only  limitation  to  this 
law  of  personal  property  sprang  from  an  indispensable 
community  of  action.  What  could  be  made  or  got  by 
the  man  alone  was  his  own.  What  could  be  made 
or  got  only  by  the  family  as  a  whole,  was  owned  in 
common  by  the  family  ;  but  by  no  other  family.  What 
was  only  attainable  l3y  the  joint  efforts  of  a  tribe  was 
the  property  of  the  entire  tribe.  Polyandry  obscured 
and  extinguished  the  individual  ownership  of  the  child ; 
and  then  the  eldest  brother,  as  head  of  the  house, 
became  the  master  of  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  all  the 
children,  whether  begotten  by  himself  or  by  his 
brothers.  The  fruit  of  the  chase,  in  which  all  shared, 
was  partaken  by  all ;  and  the  fruit  of  the  soil,  which 
all  tilled.  Hence  savage  tribes  still  hold  land  in 
commonalty ;  and  the  worst  feature  of  this  mode  of 
tenure,  the  encouragement  it  gives  to  laziness,  is  the 
strongest  popular  argument  with  civilized  nations  in 
favor  of  ownership  in  severalty. 

But  this  ver}'^  argument  for  the  several  ownership  of 
the  land  which  can  be  divided,  and  of  the  fountains, 
running  streams  and  coast  lines  which  can  be  defined 
for  fishing  and  milling  purposes,  is  of  no  logical  value 
except  so  long  as  it  stands  upon  the  original  ground 
of  Use. 


364  THE   SOCIAL    DESTINY   OF    THE   RACE.        [LECT. 

To  the  savage  tribe  it  is  all-importaiit  to  define  and 
defend  boundaries;  because  expatriation  on  the  one 
hand  and  invasion  on  the  other,  means  for  them  either 
annihilation  or  enslavement. 

For  the  civilized  farmer,  the  landmark  has  the  same 
value ;  it  protects  work  and  the  fruit  of  work ;  that  is, 
life  and  happiness.  But  this  its  main  function  is  of 
course  limited  to  the  homestead  and  its  vicinage ;  and 
cannot  be  justified  at  a  distance.  To  remove  the  land- 
marks was  a  crime  rightly  cursed  by  Jewish  legislation. 
But  the  wealth  and  enterprise  of  modern  days  has 
caused  a  far  removal;  in  important  respects  indeed  a 
necessary  one ;  but  in  other  respects  most  unjust  and 
injurious. 

Absenteeism,  a  social  disease  of  the  new  order  of 
things,  demands  a  wise  and  skilful  diagnosis,  a  careful 
and  benevolent  treatment.  Surely  it  must  some  day 
obtain  both.  But  the  day  seems  far  removed;  for, 
what  with  changes  of  government;  the  general  increase 
of  population ;  the  expansion  of  trade ;  the  multiplica- 
tion of  industries ;  new  inventions  in  the  mechanic  arts 
fostering  the  growth  of  cities  and  the  immigration  of 
provincials  into  these ;  the  location  of  continental  rail- 
ways branching  in  all  directions;  the  development  of 
innumerable  gold,  silver,  copper,  iron,  coal  and  oil 
regions  and  the  transference  to  them  of  homeless  multi- 
tudes ;  the  flow  of  emigration  into  newly  discovered 
areas  of  the  earth's  surface ;  and  the  general  intermixt- 
ure of  families,  tribes,  nations,  and  races,  still  clinging 
to  their  only  half-abandoned  claims  to  old  possessions 
while  inaugurating  claims  to  new  —  Absenteeism  has 
seen  its  opportunity  and  seized  it  with  a  vigorous  grasp. 
It  has  changed  its  form,  and  with  that  its  name.  It  is 
now  Monopoly. 

Yet  Monopoly  is  not  an  evil ;  only  subject,  like  other 
things,  to  the  risk  of  becoming  evil.  In  this  it  differs 
from  Absenteeism,  which  is  almost  wholly  evil.  Mo- 
nopoly is  the  return  of  civilization  to  take  up  the  sav- 
age code  of  ownership  in  commonalty,  without  purging 
that  code  of  what  is  unsuitable  to  civilized  ownership  in 
severalty.     Instead   of,   as   formerly,  the  tribe  at  war 


XIV.]  THE   SOCIAL   DESTINY   OF   THE  RACE.  365 

with  every  neighboring  tribe,  we  have  now  the  com- 
pany in  competition  with  every  other  company.  In- 
stead of  a  contest  with  bows  and  arrows,  clubs  and 
spears,  ambuscades  and  hand-to-hand  battles,  we  have 
log-rolling  in  the  legislature,  intrigues  in  the  directors' 
room,  sharp  practice  at  the  bar,  and  the  bulling  and 
bearing  of  stocks  on  change. 

The  popular  cry  against  Monopolies  is  a  mistake; 
for,  as  the  drainage  of  a  continent  requires  great  rivers, 
and  the  rains  collect  into  lakes  and  seas,  fi'om  the  evap- 
oration of  which  the  continents  are  again  blessed  with 
fertilizing  showers,  so,  private  wealths  combine  to  form 
accumulated  capital,  by  the  which  entire  nations  of 
working-men  are  provided  with  various  work.  And 
capital  must  be  administered.  And  administration 
requires  service.  And  service  to  be  efficient  must  be 
made  responsible.  And  the  most  stringent  sense  of 
responsibility  is  that  of  a  man  to  his  own  interest. 
Power  when  distributed  among  many  loses  force  by 
losing  directness ;  when  placed  in  the  hands  of  one  or 
a  few  it  becomes  quick,  straightforward  and  efficient. 

The  monopolies  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  of  the  Ori- 
ent of  the  present  da}',  were  and  still  are  iniquitous 
compacts  between  tyrants  and  their  tools,  for  fleecing 
the  people.  Farming  out  the  taxes  has  reduced  en- 
slaved nations  to  wretchedness  and  kept  them  wretched. 
The  salt  and  grain-grinding  monopolies,  once  in  vogue, 
deserved  all  the  execrations  they  received.  But  a  gov- 
ernment monopoly  of  the  sale  of  tobacco  is  a  blessed 
mitigation  of  despotism. 

There  remains  under  modern  constitutional  govern- 
ments only  one  monopoly  which  perpetuates  the  system 
of  bad  government  now  so  fast  passing  away  —  the  mo- 
nopoly of  land  by  hereditary  descent. 

France  relieved  itself  of  this  load  by  the  great  rev- 
olution of  1789.  Switzerland  threw  off  the  same  load 
gradually,  in  her  long  struggles  with  Austria  and  Bur- 
gundy; but  is  not  even  yet  entirely  disencumbered. 
All  th"  other  countries  of  Europe  groan  still  beneath 
its  weight. 

In   America  alone,  the  land,  like  aii'  and  water,  is  as 


366  THE   SOCIAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.        [LECT. 

yet  too  pleDtiful  to  be  appreciably  monopolized  either 
by  government,  by  privileged  classes,  or  by  individuals. 
But  the  spirit  of  land-monopoly  works  even  in  the 
United  States,  and  produces  evils  here  and  there,  petty 
in  view  of  the  woes  of  other  times  and  lands,  but 
prophetic  of  future  danger.  Bred  of  the  old  delusion 
that  he  who  does  not  create  can  nevertheless  rightfully 
own,  it  exerts  its  subtile  influence  upon  all  the  legisla- 
tion of  all  the  united  states ;  and  nothing  but  the  fresh 
energy  of  new  ideas,  nothing  but  the  counteraction  of  a 
wise  and  good  public  sentiment,  will  avail  to  save  us 
as  a  nation  from  a  future  destiny  which  shall  repeat 
the  horrors  of  the  past. 

The  popular  sentiment  in  America,  however,  is  sound 
at  the  core.  It  affirms  silently,  if  not  openl}',  that 
Absenteeism  is  not  monopoly  in  the  modern  sense,  but 
monopoly  in  the  sense  of  the  dark  ages.  Americans 
permit  it  to  live  and  work,  but  watch  and  lifnit  its 
activity ;  tax  it  heavily ;  and  hamstring  it  effectively  by 
forbidding  its  entail.  The  woes  of  Ireland  issue  from 
the  womb  of  an  entailed  absenteeism.  The  prosperity 
of  France  is  wholl}^  due  to  the  various  effects  produced 
upon  the  character  and  habits  of  the  people  by  the  en- 
forced equal  devisement  of  land  to  all  and  each  of  the 
surviving  children.  Despotism  is  impossible  without 
an  aristocracy  based  upon  an  hereditary  close  entail  of 
land, —  cither  an  aristocracy  of  title,  or  an  aristocracy 
of  money,  or  both.  The  iron  despotism  of  England  — 
the  least  free  of  all  civilized  countries  for  the  multi- 
tude—  is  upheld  by  the  power  of  this  prerogative  of  the 
peer,  reinforced  by  the  same  power  and  prerogative 
vested  in  the  capitalist.  The  Irish  landlord  lives  in 
London;  his  banker  in  London  pays  the  troops  which 
guard  his  land  in  Ireland.  The  Common  Law  of  Eng- 
land (called  "common"  in  a  sarcastic  sense)  declares 
that  he  owns  that  land  in  Ireland.  The  Irish  tenants 
rebel — not  against  government,  but  against  this  idea. 
The  whole  human  race —  except  the  privileged  owners 
of  "real  estate"  and  th(!  lawjers,  politicians,  and  sol- 
diers, their  retainers —  the  whole  human  race  enter- 
tains  the   profound   conviction,   implanted   by  Nature 


XIV.]  THE   SOCIAL  DESTINY  OF   THE  RACE.  367 

and  cultivated  by  the  experience  of  life,  that  ownership 
is  based  ou  creation,  and  confirmed  by  use,  alone. 

The  destiny  of  man  is  to  prove  this  conviction  to  be 
true,  and  to  illustrate  the  truth  of  it  in  the  future. 

Will  it  be  accounted  illogical,  if  I  say  that  the  so- 
called  Monopolies  of  our  day,  at  which  self-styled  dem- 
ocrats and  socialists  bay,  like  dogs  at  the  moon,  are 
among  the  first  of  these  illustrations  ? 

Let  us  see. 

The  genius  of  our  age  is  the  spirit  of  mutual  asso- 
ciation for  the  promotion  of  a  common  interest.  It 
organizes  society  in  a  thousand  ways  so  as  to  combine 
its  particular  individual  forces  for  greater  efficiency, 
interweaving  a  thousand  twisted  threads  of  wisdom 
and  energy  into  one  fabric. 

Relieved  of  autocracy,  that  vain  substitution  of  a 
local  god-  and  father-despot  whose  sceptre  and  sword 
should  answer  all  demands  of  law,  justice  and  benevo- 
lence,— relieved  of  oligarchy,  that  equally  unsuccessful 
makeshift  for  a  nation's  self-keep  and  self-culture, — 
human  society  is  now  free  to  assume  the  reins  of  its 
own  government,  to  provide  for  its  own  wants,  to  regu- 
late its  own  conduct,  to  cure  its  own  harms,  to  select 
its  own  paths  to  prosperity,  and  to  forecast  its  own 
destiny. 

The  first  stage  of  the  new  adventure  is  that  of  Conr 
sultation.  Knowledge  of  the  situation — the  whole  sit- 
uation, within  and  without, —  must  be  gained  first. 

And  the  first  business  to  be  attended  to  is  the 
taking  an  account  of  stock ;  estimating  the  resources  at 
human  command  for  accomplishing  needful  human 
work;  debating  and  distinguishing  between  the  need- 
ful and  the  less  needful,  the  useful  and  the  agreeable, 
the  desirable  and  the  attainable ;  stating  the  amount 
and  quality  of  raw  material ;  the  efficiency  of  the 
machinery  by  which  it  can  be  converted  to  use;  the 
means  of  transportation;  and  methods  of  distribution, 
where  the  supply  is  demanded.  And  this  as  regards 
not  only  the  feeding,  clothing,  housing,  and  warming  of 
the  body,  but  the  enlightenment  of  the  intellect,  the 
rectification  of  the  will,  and  the  ennoblement  of  the 
heart — for  each  and  all  —  also. 


368  THE   SOCL\.L   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.        [LECT. 

The  second  business  to  be  attended  to,  is  the  adjust- 
ment of  property.  Modern  society  is  essentially  dem- 
ocratic. The  Divine  Right  has  descended  to  all.  The 
old  idea  of  the  clan,  or  tribe,  or  gens,  has  been  expanded 
to  fit  the  entire  nation.  There  must  be  a  distribution  of 
work,  and  a  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  work,  to  all., 
He  that  works  much  must  get  much ;  he  that  works  ill 
earn  little.  But  the  wages  must  be  proportioned  to 
the  work.  "Whether  the  work  be  invisible  or  visible, 
skilled  or  merely  manual,  for  the  craving  necessities  or 
for  the  no  less  craving  imaginations  of  men  —  the  work 
in  any  case  must  be  justly  estimated  at  its  true  value  to 
society,  and  be  rewarded  with  a  just  amount  of  owner- 
ship in  real  estate^ —  not  necessarily  in  land.,  but  in 
iohatever  is  real  in  the  estate  of  the  owner,  whoever  he 
may  be,  working  under  the  divine  inspiration  of  a 
desire  and  a  hope  to  own.  And  the  same  legal  safe- 
guards should  be  thrown  around  "  personal  property  " 
so  called,  that  are  so  sedulously  drawn  around  what 
improperly  arrogates  to  itself  the  exclusive  title  of 
"  real  estate." 

Consultation  upon  these  two  subjects  of  universal 
interest  was  not  feasible  until  the  commencement  of 
the  present  century.  Kings  could  consult  upon  their 
OAvn  affairs,  but  not  the  people.  Even  merchants  and 
bankers  found  it  difficult  to  consult.  Armies  were  lost 
for  want  of  means  of  verbal  communication. 

The  discovery  of  the  power  of  steam,  and  the  discov 
ery  of  the  galvanic  current, —  the  inventions  of  the 
steamboat,  the  railroad,  the  newspaper  and  the  tele- 
graph— were  trumpet  notes  of  invitation  to  man- 
kind to  meet  in  convention  to  revise  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Commonwealth.  Slowly  but  surely  all 
classes  of  men  in  Christendom  have  answered  the  call. 
They  are  now  in  session.  The  convention  has  a 
quorum  of  millions..  There  is  a  committee  on  every 
subject  of  necessity  or  interest  to  any  class  of  society, 
however  small.  They  sit  en  permanence.  They  report 
at  pleasure.  They  elect  to  fill  their  own  vacancies. 
They  appoint  their  own  chairmen,  secretaries,  and 
treasurers ;  frame  their  own  parliamentary  rules ;  meet 


XIV.]  THE   SOCIAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.  369 

and  adjourn  in  independence  of  each  other ;  have  their 
several  committee  rooms ;  keep  their  own  private  and 
publish  tlieir  public  records.  Nothing  private  is  long 
concealed.  The  committees  know  each  other's  debates 
and  pass  judgment  on  each  other's  resolutions;  debate 
again  and  again  and  resolve  acjcordingly. 

These  committees  of  the  general  convention  of  civ- 
ilized communities  are  all  well  known  to  you,  Ity  name, 
and  character.  They  are  the  Trades  unions,  the 
Boards  of  brokers,  the  Institutes  of  Mining,  Civil  and 
Mechanical  engineers;  Astronomical,  Meteorological, 
Physical,  Chemical,  Mineralogical,  Geological,  Palseon- 
tological.  Botanical,  Zoological,  Historical,  ArchiEologi- 
cal,  Philological,  Statistical  and  Geographical  socie- 
ties; the  Cobden  club,  the  Iron  and  Steel  association, 
the  Free-trade  league,  the  Land  league ;  Boards  of 
trade  and  Merchants'  associations;  the  Society  of  the 
Cincinnati ;  Army  clubs,  Literary  clubs,  Political  clubs 
of  all  kinds ;  Scientific  congresses,  associations  and 
unions  in  ever}^  land ;  Health  conventions,  Prison  dis- 
cipline conventions,  Political  caucuses  and  conventions 
of  every  size  and  shade  of  opinion;  Freemasonries 
of  a  dozen  names ;  Religious  conventions  bj^  bishops, 
by  presbyters,  by  laity  of  every  order  and  doctrine ; 
Railway,  Canal  and  Mining  companies,  and  Bureaus  of 
government,  with  statistical,  agricultural  portfolios  no 
longer  held  by  the  lords  but  by  the  servants  of  the 
people;  no  longer  busy  with  plans  for  destroying  the 
peace  of  the  many  for  the  sake  of  the  ease  of  the  few, 
but  collecting  and  distributing  the  knowledge  of  what 
is  good  to  all,  that  all  may  obtain  some  fair  and  reason- 
able share  of  it. 

This  new  organization  of  civilized  society  resembles 
the  old  organization  of  semi-civilized  society  as  a  man 
awakened  to  the  exercise  of  brain  and  nerves  and  mus- 
cles resembles  a  man  with  the  powers  of  thought  and 
motion  still  locked  fast  in  slumber.  The  organic 
nature  of  mankind  has  always  manifested  its  ability 
for  performing  the  functions  of  amity  and  comity  on  a 
small  scale,  in  the  sphere  of  the  family  and  the  clan, 
where  intercommunication  and  mutual  intelligence  are 


370  THE    SOCIAL   DESTINY   OF   THE   EACE. 

comparatively  easy  and  simple,  and.  within  narrow  geo- 
graphical limits  defined  by  the  physics  of  human  exist- 
ence. Now,  that  physical  disabilities  are  so  abated 
or  removed,  intercommunication  of  neighborhoods  and 
provinces  with  one  another  and  of  whole  nations  with 
one  another  has  become  gwift  and  facile.  The  old  bar- 
riers are  thrown  down ;  the  seas  are  bridged,  the  Alps 
are  tunnelled ;  lightning  and  news  are  synonymous 
terms;  language  alone  remains  forbidding;  and  even 
this  last  barrier  is  being  removed  by  the  resolutions 
of  the  World  Committee  on  Education.  International 
conventions  are  the  order  of  the  day.  International 
expositions  of  the  industries  of  all  nations  explain  to 
the  eyes  and  minds  of  all  peoples  their  common  inter- 
ests. Thousands  of  millions  of  letters  and  postal  cards 
fly  and  fall  like  snow  upon  the  globe,  covering,  warm- 
ing and  moistening  the  soil  of  the  coming  springtime 
of  history;  the  seed  in  which  is  Christianity ;  and  the 
harvest  must  needs  be  Peace  and  Plenty. 

The  Isis  of  man's  destiny  has  dropped  her  veil.  Lo  ! 
we  suspected  the  worn  face  and  streaming  eyes  of  the 
Mater  Dolorosa.  We  behold  instead  the  radiant  coun- 
tenance, full  of  wisdom,  energy  and  benevolence,  of 
the  Dresden  Madonna  ;  and  in  her  arms  sits  the  regal 
boy,  the  thoughtful,  planful,  powerful  Horus-Christ; 
just  Avaked  from  the  dreamful  slumbers  of  a  millennial 
night,  to  enjoy  a  millennial  day ;  the  observant  specta- 
tor of  his  Father's  work. 


I 


LECTURE   XV. 

TBTE  PUTUBE  ECONOMIES   OP  MATTKCNT). 

I  HAVE  said  that  the  common  social  life  of  the  world 
is  represented  in  four  ways: — 1.  by  Manufacture,  2. 
by  Trade  and  Commerce,  3.  by  Warfare,  and  4.  by 
Legislation. 

How  will  the  future  declare  itself  in  respect  to  these 
normal  lines  of  conduct  pursued  by  the  human  race,  as 
it  becomes  more  and  more  a  unit  ?  Let  us  take  them 
up  in  order;  and  with  the  premise  that  they  call  for 
discussions  on  the  nature  of  property,  on  the  value  of 
money,  and  on  the  art  of  finance  far  too  fundamental 
and  extensive  to  be  more  than  suggested  in  this  lecture. 

In  Manufactures  the  skill  of  man  has  exhausted 
itself.  Evidently  there  are  few  materials  left  to  dis- 
cover which  can  be  so  important  for  the  arts  as  the 
india-rubber  gum,  quinine,  the  black  diamond,  the 
Stassfurt  salts,  cryolite,  and  anthracite. 

The  modern  house  typifies  the  future,  as  plainly  as 
the  wigwam  and  mud  hovel  signifies  the  past. 

Within  the  domain  of  luxury  the  manufacturing 
genius  shall  find  its  chief  employment  in  coming  ages. 
Universal  comfort  will  be  the  watchword;  for,  com- 
fort, once  the  expensive  monopoly  of  a  few,  is  to  be 
the  cheap  abundance  of  the  many. 

Machinery  is  both  the  cause  and  the  effect  of  comfort. 
What  few  demand,  a  few  supply;  and  the  supply  is 
occasional,  sparing,  difficult  and  costly.  What  all 
demand  is  sure  to  be  created  abundantly,  quickly, 
easily  and  at  a  low  price ;  transported  in  quantities  to 


372  THE   FUTURE   ECONOMIES    OF   JMANKIND.     [LECT. 

great  distances ;  and  stored  in  piles  for  general  eon- 
sumption. 

No  more  exquisite  gold  work,  silver  work  or  glass 
worlv  can  ever  be  made  than  is  exhumed  from  ancient 
tombs.  But  850,000,000  worth  of  finger-rings  are  now 
worn  by  the  people  of  the  United  States.  The  grand 
duchess  Margaret  of  Burgundy  slept  in  a  small  stone 
room,  with  one  low  window,  in  the  chateau  of  Dijon ; 
sat  upon  a  wooden  stool ;  and  dressed  by  a  hand  glass 
no  larger  than  a  window-pane.  A  cell  in  the  Eastern 
Penitentiary  is  a  fine  place  in  comparison.  The  audi- 
ence chamber  of  Queen  Elizabeth  of  England  was  car- 
peted with  rushes,  not  free  from  vermin ;  and  the 
house  of  any  mechanic  in  Philadelphia  compared  with 
her  palace  is  a  heaven  of  curious  luxury. 

Modern  machinery  is  fast  obliterating  the  distinctions 
of  caste  and  class.  When  Steinway's,  Chickering's  and 
Broadwood's  grand-action  pianos  are  heard  in  secluded 
farm-houses,  the  old  days  of  chivalry,  with  spinnet  and 
cither,  have  closed  up  their  accounts  with  civilization  ; 
assigning  their  best  possessions  and  long  jealously 
guarded  rights  to  the  canaille.  No  chariot  of  Pharaoh 
or  Emperor  could  compete  for  curious  elegance  or  util- 
ity with  either  the  English  bicycle  or  the  American 
buggy;   no  coliseum  with  a  modern  opera  house. 

What  Avere  the  glories  of  Cleopatra's  barge,  or  of  the 
Bucentaur,  in  comparison  with  the  splendid  convenience 
of  a  Fall  River  steamboat,  daily  fitted  out  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  any  two  thousand  citizens  who  please  to  occupy 
it?  The  elaborately  aristocratic  post-chaise  system  of 
only  seventy  years  ago  seems  rude  and  awkward  now, 
in  view  of  the  democratic  refinements  of  daily  trains 
of  palace,  sleeping,  smoking,  dining,  express  and  mail 
cars  following  each  other  in  rapid  fiight  and  ceaseless 
succession  across  the  American  continent. 

The  application  of  steam  to  machinery,  and  of  sci- 
ence to  invention,  has  accomplished  this ;  and  there- 
fore, since  the  power  of  steam  is  infinitely  applicable, 
and  since  the  multitude  of  inventors  is  always  on  the 
increase,  the  universal  distribution  of  comiiunal  lux- 
uries to  mankind  would  seem  to  be  merely  a  question 
of  time. 


XV.]         THE   FUTURE    ECONOMIES    OF    MANKIND.  373 

It  must  also  be  cousidered,  that  in  past  ages  war 
was  habitual,  cruel,  and  reckless  of  cousequencos. 
Every  conflict  was  succeeded  bv  the  sack  of  cities,  and 
cities  were  the  only  centres  of  manufacture.  With  the 
city,  its  artisans  also  were  destroyed ;  and  their  ma- 
chinery, poor  as  it  was,  perished  in  the  same  ruin. 

Now,  on  the  contrary,  wars  come  rarely,  rage  fiercely 
but  locally,  destro}^  little,  spare  carefully,  and,  so  far 
from  belittling,  actually  enlarge  and  invigorate  the 
sphere  of  the  arts ;  and  modern  manufacturing  estab- 
lishments, placed  rather  in  the  open  country  than  in 
cities,  escape  instead  of  inviting  destruction. 

The  Finance  of  the  future  —  what  will  it  be  ? 

That  must  depend  upon  the  future  reconstructions  of 
social  ideas  of  property. 

In  past  times,  the  task  of  collection  and  expenditure 
was  simple,  if  not  easy:  collection  by  force,  and  expen- 
diture at  will.  Absolute  power,  based  on  the  right  of 
the  strongest  and  on  the  loose  aggregation  of  the  mill- 
ions, took  what  it  pleased,  or  could  get,  and  spent 
upon  itself  and  its  favorites.  The  lord  owned  every- 
thing and  was  accountable  to  no  one.  The  tax-gatherer 
compounded  with  the  monarch  for  half  the  imposts, 
and  often  lost  his  half,  now  to  the  unscrupulous  despot 
and  now  to  the  enraged  and  despairing  mob. 

At  length  the  necessities  of  the  throne  established 
the  right  of  the  commons  to  initiate  appropriations 
for  its  maintenance. 

Finally,  democratic  revolutions  formulated  the  pre- 
scription "No  taxation  without  representation"  —  so 
far  as  freeholders  of  the  male  sex  were  concerned. 

Republican  government  has  resulted  in  the  popular 
criticism  of  all  aj)propriation  bills  not  onl}^  after  but 
previous  to  their  passage ;  and  all  such  bills  are  re- 
ferred, not  to  the  Executive,  but  to  a  standing  Com- 
mittee on  finance. 

It  seems  likely  then  that  in  the  future  every  separate 
interest  of  societv  wdl  have  its  weight  in  determining 
legislative  financial  enactments;  and  that  a  just  balance 
of  all  interests  will  be  rejiresented  by  a  frequently  mod. 


374  THF   FUTURE  ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.     [LECT. 

fied  but  generally  consistent  system  of  internal  taxes 
and  foreign  imposts,  lightening  the  burden  of  expense 
for  each  by  equally  distributing  it  over  all. 

But  a  struggle  will  always  be  maintained  between 
the  direct  and  indirect  methods. 

Before  social  interests  became  so  involved  with  one 
another  as  they  are  now,  and  when  individuals  and 
guilds  and  single  communities  maintained  a  strict  and 
jealous  individuality,  having  little  intercourse  witli  one 
another,  each  standing  squarely  face  to  face  with  the 
ruling  power,  the  personal  property  tax  was  the  sim- 
plest, quickest  and  most  forcible  method  of  taxation. 
So,  the  purist  still  admires  the  income  tax  for  its 
directness  and  simplicity.  But  business  men  univer- 
sally prefer  an  impost  on  the  '  fruits  of  industry ; 
because  that  method  of  taxation  raises  no  embarrass- 
ing personal  questions.  Moreover,  losses  which  are 
not  noticed  are  not  grieved  over;  and  poor  people, 
receiving  no  tax-bills,  suppose  that  capitalists  and  land- 
lords alone  support  the  government,  and  are  seldom 
roused  to  inquiry  except  at  crises  when  house  ex- 
penses exceed  wages.  Even  then,  far  from  compre- 
hending that  both  prices  and  wages  are  regulated 
partly  by  taxation  and  partly  by  the  balance  of 
supply  and  demand  —  they  lay  the  blame  vaguely 
upon  capital  in  the  abstract,  and  not  upon  an}^  pre- 
cise misappropriation  of  capital  for  unnecessary  or 
wasteful  objects. 

Even  should  a  universal  better  education  of  the  mul- 
titude hereafter  avail  to  clear  men's  vision  for  a  real 
understanding  of  the  complicated  finances  of  human 
life — which  is  very  doubtful  —  the  hope  of  the  future 
must  rest  upon  a  breed  of  honest  experts,  Avhom  the 
people  can  trust,  and  to  whom  they  can  delegate  the 
power  to  tax.  The  education  of  such  a  class  of  experts 
may  perhaps  be  hoped  for  ;  but  it  will  manifest  two 
opposite  tendencies. 

There  must  always  continue  to  be  two  schools  of 
linauciers  —  one  more  theoretical ;  the  other  more  prac- 
tical; both  relying  on  masses  of  statistics;  both  argu- 
ing fiom  different  stand-points.     The  more   theoretical 


XV.]         THE  FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.  375 

will  strive  to  realize  transcendental  ideas ;  the  more 
practical  will  strive  to  arrange  interests  as  exhibited 
about  them. 

This  native  divergence  is  the  first  distinction  be- 
tween free-traders  and  protectionists.  The  former  start- 
ing from  the  universal  idea  of  human  brotherhood,  and 
the  latter  starting  with  the  necessities  of  their  own 
home  and  country.  The  former  pursue  the  argument 
with  a  conviction  that  what  is  good  in  the  long  run  for 
the  whole  must  be  good  for  each  part ;  the  latter  con- 
fessing ignorance  of  what  should  be  good  for  the  whole, 
confine  their  intellectual  activity  within  the  scope  of 
actual  knowledge  of  what  is  beneficial  to  a  part. 

Other  elements  of  strife  intrude.  The  commercial 
class  (technically  so  called,  as  opposed  to  the  class  of 
traders)  resist  by  instinct  all  imposts  upon  foreign 
goods,  and  desire  to  throw  the  burden  of  an  excise  tax 
upon  home  productions.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the 
very  large  class  of  really  or  virtually  foreign  merchants 
doing  business  at  American  ports.  Their  interests  cen- 
tre in  foreign  lands,  and  they  naturally  wish  well  to 
foreign  manufactures.  Their  wealth  is  great,  and 
their  efforts  to  influence  home  legislation  are  skilfully 
directed.  Aliens  at  heart,  citizens  only  in  name,  and 
by  accidental  or  temporary  residence,  their  financial 
philosophy  leans  as  much  to  one  side  away  from  the 
truth,  as  do  to  the  other  side  the  financial  propositions 
of  those  who  would  gladly  support  the  government  (if 
that  were  possible)  by  the  exclusive  taxation  of  for- 
eigners to  the  complete  relief  of  its  own  citizens. 

Between  these  two  extremes  ranges  the  line  of  theory 
and  practice  called  "  Protectionist  "  ;  seeking  to  impose 
only  such  a  tariff  upon  foreign  goods  as  shall  result  in 
founding  and  making  safe  and  permanent  all  kinds  ol 
human  work  on  its  own  soil ;  so  that  competition  shall 
take  place  only  between  the  equally  liable  subjects  of 
the  home  government,  and  not  between  tax-payers  rep- 
resented at  Washington  (for  instance),  and  foreigners 
whose  conduct  cannot  be  checked  in  London,  Paris,  or 
Berlin.  A  high  tariff,  at  its  first  send-off,  certainly 
enhances  the  price  of  manuiactured  articles  at  home. 


376  THE   FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.    [LECT. 

But  experience  shows  this  to  be  a  temporary  incon- 
venience ;  for,  as  soon  as  any  inanufactiire  is  fairly  in- 
troduced and  extended,  competition  with  itself  brings 
down  the  price  nearly  to  a  par  with  the  foreign  article. 
And  if  a  difference  still  remain,  that  difference  really 
represents  a  higher  rate  of  wages  at  home,  and  a  better 
])rofit  on  the  raw  material  produced  at  home. 

But,  apart  from  the  question  of  price.  Protection  to 
home  manufactures  meets  a  capital  demand  of  nature : 
that  every  nationality  shall  take  proper  stops  for  equip- 
ping itself  with  all  the  powers,  and  furnishing  itself 
completely  with  the  whole  apparatus  of  civilization. 
Evidently,  this  cannot  be  effected  so  long  as  foreign 
nations  are  permitted  to  feed  or  clothe  or  build  or 
make  for  it  anything  that  it  really  wants  and  can  ac- 
complish for  itself. 

Any  advancement  of  the  human  race  in  wisdom  and 
goodness  must  result  in  the  general  spread  of  the  virt- 
ues of  temperance,  diligence,  honest}^  and  thrift.  Any 
accumulation  of  the  popular  wealth  in  the  hands  of  all, 
must  render  working  men  more  independent  of  their 
employers  and  tend  to  co-operative  industry.  This  in 
its  turn  will  settle  wages  accoixling  to  the  law  of  supply 
and  demand;  and,  finally,  the  right  adjustment  of  both 
wages  and  profit  in  associated  trades  will  arrange 
prices.  There  is  a  real  price  and  there  is  a  fictitious 
])rice  for  everything.  Its  real  price  is  the  average 
money  which  would  be  offered  for  it,  say  by  a  hundred 
thousand  ordinarily  intelligent  people.  Its  fictitious 
jirice  is  what  it  might  occasionally  command  as  bric-a- 
l)rac,  or  as  a  souvenir,  or  from  a  capricious,  eccentric, 
or  extraordinarily  wealthy  person. 

The  natural  price  of  a  manufactured  article  is  deter- 
mined by  an  estimate  of  the  expense  of  its  manufac- 
ture :  1.  So  many  minutes,  hours,  days,  or  years  of  the 
maker's  life  -)-  the  cost  of  the  raw  material  and  tools 
-|-  the  expense  of  exposing  it  in  its  proper  market  -j- 
an  average  percentage  of  unemployed  time  between 
the  finishing  of  it  and  the  undertaking  of  another  job 
-f-  a  percentage  of  the  hours  of  enforced  idleness  in 
old  age,  during  which  the  workman  must  be  supported 
from  the  profits  of  his  life  -\-  a  percentage. 


XV.]         THE    FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OP   MANKIND.  377 

His  education  as  a  child  and  for  the  workshop  is  not 
counted  as  a  separate  item,  for  that  comes  into  his 
father's  account,  and  reguLates  the  prices  of  the  hist  gen- 
eration. But  the  education  of  his  own  chiklren  and  all 
other  home  expenses  taken  together  determine  the  value 
of  the  first  element  of  the  calculation.  If  it  cost  a 
workman  $1,000  a  year  to  live,  as  husband,  father,  citi- 
zen and  christian ;  and  if  he  can  accomplish  6  good 
hours  of  work  in  each  of  300  days  in  tlie  3'ear,  for  40 
years,  in  a  life  of  70;  then  from  40x300x6=72,000 
hours  of  work  he  must  get  $40,000  worth  of  prices 
over  and  above  all  expense  of  material,  tools,  shop 
and  transportation ;  making  each  theoretical  work- 
hour  worth  to  him  at  least  $0  55.  Commencing  at  20 
years  of  age  and  working  until  he  is  60,  he  must  pro- 
vide $10,000  more  for  the  remaining  10  years  of  his 
life,  if  his  home  expenses  continue  to  be  the  same  to 
its  close.  This  will  make  his  work-hour  worth  at  least 
$0.79.  This  supposes  him  to  have  no  interruption  in 
business  for  forty  years.  Supposing  interruptions  to 
the  extent  of  20  per  cent., —  the  worth  of  an  hour  then 
rises  to  $1.00. 

If  by  the  abundance  and  low  price  of  food,  clothing 
and  materials  he  can  support  his  family  on  $500  a  year, 
the  natural  first  price  of  his  manufactured  article  will 
fall  to  $0.50  or  to  $0.40  per  hour  required  for  its  manu- 
facture. But  every  indidgence  he  allows  to  himself,  to 
his  wife  or  to  his  children,  will  enhance  the  price  he 
must  ask  for  his  hour's  work.  Every  delay  in  his  ar- 
rangements, every  detention  by  a  customer,  every  piece 
of  spoiled  work,  every  loss  by  accident,  every  play  of 
his  invention,  every  change  of  model  compelling  new 
calculations  or  new  tools,  increases  the  natural  price  of 
his  Avorking  hours  by  diminishing  their  number. 

This  is  the  explanation  of  the  supposed  stupidity  of 
mechanics  who  obstinately  refuse  to  depart  from  their 
rules  of  thumb  to  gratify  the  caprice  or  the  intelligence 
of  their  employers. 

The  estimate  given  above  is  based  on  the  American 
idea  that  the  man  supports  the  woman  by  his  labor, 
and  that  the  woman  earns  nothing  by  her  own  labor, 


378  THE   FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.    [LECT. 

being  Avholly  and  ahva^'s  occupied  in  household  cares. 
On  the  basis  of  French  ideas  —  a  basis  far  sounder  and 
more  stable  in  the  nature  of  things,  to  which  all  nations 
have  been  brought  down,  and  on  which  the  American 
nation  also  in  the  course  of  time  will  be  forced  to 
arrange  its  affairs  —  the  woman,  sharing  the  work  life 
of  the  man,  shares  in  the  profit  and  loss  account  of  its 
finance.  The  wife  works  with  the  husband  in  the  field 
and  vineyard,  in  the  workshop  and  office.  Thus  the 
family  time  and  strength  is  doubled,  and  the  woman 
who  cannot  earn  as  much  as  the  man  does  more  to  save 
earnings  than  the  man.  On  this  basis,  with  this  thrifti- 
ness,  the  cost  of  living  is  reduced  to  one-half,  and  the 
cost  of  all  manufactures  falls"  to  one-half;  because  raw 
material  is  itself  a  manufacture  in  the  first  stage,  and 
its  cost  is  reduced  first.  If  the  American  married 
man's  hour  be  worth  -$1.00,  the  French  married  man's 
hour  is  worth  only  50c.  But  on  this  half-pay  he  and 
his  live  wiser,  better  and  happier  than  the  American 
family  lives  on  double  wages. 

I  have  no  opportunity  here  to  discuss  the  complicated 
mass  of  consequences  deducible  from  this  principle. 
But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  however  machinery  may 
cheapen  comfort  for  future  generations,  hand-made'  or 
brain-made  luxuries  must  in  all  future  ages  continue  to 
be  the  private  enjoyment  of  a  favored  few,  or  else  be 
owned  in  common  and  arranged  in  public  places.  Pri- 
vate cabinets  must  give  way  to  public  museums.  Li- 
braries of  rare  and  costly  books  must  be  thrown  open  to 
all.  The  gardens  of  the  rich  must  be  combined  to 
make  public  parks.  Luxurious  symposiums  must  be 
replaced  by  municipal  festivals.  Railroad  shares  must 
be  held  in  small  blocks. 

This  change  however  has  already  made  its  mark  upon 
the  century  in  which  we  live.  The  tendency  to  a  more 
complete  realization  of  it,  in  the  shape  of  comfort  at 
home  and  luxury  in  public,  is  a  strongly  pronounced 
feature  of  human  destiny  while  yet  that  destiny  is 
merely  a  child  of  the  future. 

The  item  of  Intcreat  was  not  included  in  the  list  of 
price-data   given  aijove.      Tliere   is  a  destiny  for    this 


XV.]        THE  FUTURE  ECONOMIES   OP  MANKIND.  379 

fiction  of  Interest,  also;  and  its  destiny  is  to  vanish 
away  out  of  the  calculations  and  the  life  of  men.  It  is 
no  arrangement  of  Nature  that  a  baby  should  be  born 
heir  to  an  accumulation  of  the  ownership  of  the  saved 
products  of  a  million  days'  works  of  other  men  through 
the  cunning  procedure  of  his  father  (who  in  his  life- 
time did  no  more  labor  himself  than  any  other  man), 
and  be  thereby  invested  by  legal  enactments  or 
societ)'  regulations  with  the  right  of  living  on  the 
"  Interest  "  of  that  accumulated  "  Capital "  his  whole 
life  tlirough,  and  that  without  doing  any  work  at  all 
himself. 

"  Interest  "  reveals  its  true  character  when  it  throws 
off  the  mask  of  moderation,  and  appears  then  with  its 
natural  face  as  "  Usury."  The  reason  why  all  enact- 
ments against  usury  have  been  acknowledged  failures 
is  the  ground  fact  that  there  is  no  natural  distinction 
between  usury  and  interest.  Man  was  born  to  work, 
and  to  save  from  the  proceeds  of  his  work  a  ^lenny  for 
a  rainy  da}'.  Most  human  beings  find  no  loophole  of 
escape  from  this  divine  ordinance.  Some  however  do 
escape  ;  and  the  efforts  of  others  to  escape  makeup  the 
history  of  rapine  and  fraud.  Historians  know  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  past  legislation  of  mankind  has 
really  been  for  the  application  of  ph3'sical  force  to  the 
legalization  of  rapine  and  fraud.  The  effort  of  the 
present  generation  is  to  rectify  legislation  in  the  inter- 
est of  honest  labor,  to  protect  it  from  the  prescriptive 
claims  of  rapine  and  fraud,  formulated  in  the  statute- 
books  of  bygone  generations. 

The  worst  feature  of  the  system  of  Interest  is  not  its 
theoretical  unnaturalness,  and  the  opportunity  it  affords 
for  hereditary  idleness  and  uselessness,  but  its  practical 
side-effects  in  establishing  a  broad  foundation  for  non- 
hereditary  idleness  and  uselessness  combined  with 
noxious  profligacy  and  wasteful  private  luxury.  The 
imitation  of  the  habits  of  those  born  rich  and  of  those 
living  on  incomes  incommensurate  with  the  amount  of 
work  which  they  have  accomplished,  by  a  large  class  of 
youthful  human  beings,  whose  only  wish  and  endeavor 
is  to  repudiate  their  indebtedness  to  those  who  work 


3S0  THE   FUTURE   ECONOMIES    OF    MANKIND.     [LECT. 

for  lliein,  leads  to  tins  consequt'iicc  :  tluit  the  prices  of 
all  articles  of  consumption  are  enhanced  to  the  honest 
on  the  business  principle  that  "  bad  debts "  on  the 
ledger  of  the  manufacturer  must  be  balanced  by  in- 
creased profits.  Every  idle  man  must  be  supported  by 
the  workers  of  the  world.  Every  non-producing  fam- 
ily adds  to  the  expenses  of  producing  families.  Every 
unpaid  debt  increases  the  price  of  food,  clothing,  house- 
rent,  and  furniture  to  the  whole  community.  The 
habit  of  drawing  interest  on  money  lent  is  the  first 
cause  and  continual  opportunity  of  the  production  of 
drones  in  the  human  hive;  and  its  abolition  will  be  one 
of  the  most  necessary  and  one  of  the  most  difficult  of 
all  tlu;  tasks  of  the  future. 

The  abolition  of  Interest  will  probably  be  hastened 
by  the  change  going  on  in  men's  regard  for  women. 
Hitherto  they  have  been  men's  property,  carefully 
guarded,  and  forbidden  to  work  at  any  trade  but  that 
of  serving  and  pleasing  men.  This  made  one  sex  — 
one  half  of  every  privileged  class  —  one  half  of  every 
highly  civilized  community — drones.  So  long  as  men 
worked  only  for  a  shelter  from  the  cold  and  for  suffi- 
cient food,  women's  house-work  equalled  and  balanced 
man's  shop-work;  the  shop  wa^  the  house,  and  the 
woman  and  the  man  being  constant  companions  fell 
naturally  enough  to  share  each  other's  employments. 
In  planting  and  reaping  and  tending  cattle,  they 
worked  in  common.  And  this  is  the  case  still  with 
the  most  of  human  beings.  But  as  certain  individuals 
and  classes  became  distinguished  from  the  multitude 
by  luxury  and  superior  retinement  of  manners,  certain 
women  ceased  to  work  at  useful  tasks  and  betook 
themselves  to  embroidery  and  such  like  fanciful  and 
useless  occupations.  As  "Civilization"  spread,  and 
men's  wealth  increased,  the  female  sex  acquired  senti- 
ments and  habits  of  absolute  dependence  and  physical 
inefficiency.  Their  maintenance  devolved  wholly  on 
working  men.  In  our  day  find  country,  now  that  men 
consider  women  their  equals  in  all  the  rights  of  life 
except  the  right  of  a  separate  and  independent  selec- 
tion of  work  for  themselves,  and  a  separate  and  inde- 


XV.]         THE   FUTURE    ECON(,)MIES   OF   MANKIND.  381 

pendent  ownership  of  its  proceeds,  the  extra  comfort 
and  luxury  in  which  men  love  to  see  their  women  live, 
doubles  or  quadruples  the  severity  of  male  labor,  and 
the  cost  of  family  maintenance.  Hence  the  growing 
number  of  unmarried  men.  Hence  the  multiplica- 
tion of  abandoned  women.  Hence  the  increasing  diffi- 
culty with  which  lone  women  sustain  life.  Hence  the 
revival  of  woman's  desire  to  share  in  man's  labors. 
Every  male  trade  is  besieged  with  female  applicants. 
In  course  of  time,  some  readjustment  and  return  to 
first  principles  must  be  inevitable.  Useless  work  will 
be  eliminated  from  the  business  of  the  human  race, 
and  men  and  women,  together  or  separately,  must 
occupy  their  minds  and  hands  only  with  what  is 
useful.  The  proportion  of  drones —  now  nearly  fifty 
per  cent,  of  the  whole  population — wili  fall  to  30,  20, 
10,  5  per  cent.  Production  will  rise  as  idleness  de- 
clines; and  the  cost  of  living  will  be  abated  for  each 
male  and  female  worker,  first  b}^  the  surplus  of  work 
done,  and  secondly  by  the  lessening  of  the  number  of 
drones  to  be  worked  for. 

But,  by  this  general  distribution  of  moderate  means 
to  all,  the  accumulation  of  an  undue  amount  of  the 
symbol  of  work  (money)  in  the  hands  of  the  few  will 
become  more  and  more  difficult  and  exceptional ;  while 
a  universal  and  traditional  industry  will  gradually 
metamorphose  the  fiction  of  Interest  into  the  fact  of 
Dividend. 

Interest  and  Dividend  are  contrary  terms.  For, 
whereas  Interest  represents  an  artificial  system  of 
usury,  Dividend  represents  a  natural  system  for  distrib- 
uting the  proceeds  of  labor.  It  is  needless  to  illustrate 
this  further ;  it  is  the  key  to  the  future  Social  Science. 
Its  present  symbol  is  the  Mutual  Savings  bank,  even 
complicated  as  that  still  is  with  the  fictions  of  Interest 
on  money  lent;  but  the  symbol  in  this  form  of  it 
will  be  exchanged  for  the  better  forms  of  the  Building- 
association  and  the  Co-operative  store,  in  the  just  oper- 
ation of  which  Money  makes  its  nearest  approach  to 
an  identity  with  Work. 

Money. —  This  mystic  word  is  destined  to  a  fair  illu- 
mination. 


382  THE  FUTURE  ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND^     [LECT. 

Aclergymaii  of  Philadelphia  is  said  to  have  collected 
16,000  books  on  the  one  doctrine  of  infant  baptism. 
When  Stephen  Colwell  died,  he  left  to  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania  9,000  separately  bound  treatises  on 
Money. 

Why  so  many  words  to  explain  what  everybody  com- 
prehends? It  costs  the  farmer  a  day's  work  to  get 
a  bushel  of  corn  out  the  soil;  and  it  costs  a  basket- 
weaver  one  day's  work  to  make  a  bushel  basket  to  put 
it  in.  Barter  means  that  the  farmer  shall  exchange 
his  bushel  of  wheat  for  the  basket;  and  now  the 
farmer  owns  a  basket  for  which  he  has  wrought,  and 
the  basket-maker  has  enough  food  for  his  household 
until  he  can  make  and  sell  another  basket. 

But  Bartering  is  impeded  by  a  thousand  incon- 
veniences. A  pledge  from  the  farmer  to  deliver  the 
wheat  when  the  basket-maker  wants  it  will  save  both 
of  them  from  inconvenience.  A  piece  of  gold  or  silver 
stamped  with  a  mark  which  all  farmers  and  basket- 
makers  have  agreed  to  mean  "one  day's  work"  and 
which  is  known  by  the  name  of  "Dollar,"  will  enable 
the  transfer  of  wheat  and  basket  to  be  made  at  any 
future  more  convenient  season.  A  piece  of  leather,  or 
paper  so  marked  and  so  recognized  will  do  this  as  well. 
But  in  the  case  of  gold  and  silver  the  money  (of  such 
and  such  a  weight  and  size)  represents  also  itself  a 
day's  work,  and  its  circulation  is  therefore  of  the  nature 
of  barter;  but  in  the  use  of  a  leather  coin  or  a  paper 
dollar,  thousands  of  which  can  be  made  and  stamped  in 
a  day,  the  barter  is  confined  to  the  goods,  and  the 
money  is  a  mere  promise  to  pay.  In  the  case  of  gold 
and  silver  coin,  the  buyer  and  seller  both  know  that 
the  whole  human  race  will  recognize,  comprehend  and 
help  to  realize  the  contract.  In  the  case  of  paper 
money,  the  buyer  and  seller  have  no  guarantee  beyojid 
the  genuineness  and  local  reputation  for  honesty  of  the 
name  upon  the  note.  Facilities  for  forgery  and  breach 
of  trust  are  infinitely  greater  in  the  one  case,  therefore, 
than  in  the  other.  If,  however,  these  facilities  can  be 
taken  away, —  so  that  the  barter  can  be  made  as  safely 
and   surely  with   the   paper   dollar  as   with   the   gold 


XV.]         THE   FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.  383 

dollar, —  then  the  nature  and  value  of  the  one  is  pre- 
cisely the  nature  and  value  of  the  other. 

To  do  this  is  precisely  the  object  of  every  national 
bank  system.  Banks  are  but  larger  individuals,  and 
when  they  deceive,  multitudes  are  wronged.  The  gov- 
ernment steps  in  to  guarantee  the  multitudes  against 
deceit.  If  now  the  government  itself  becomes  fraudu- 
lent, the  whole  nation  must  suifer,  and  without  redress. 

Irresponsible  governments  have  done  this  a  thousand 
times.  The  overthrow  of  many  a  government  is  attrib- 
utable to  no  other  cause.  When  the  late  Pope  debased 
the  Roman  franc  ten  per  cent..  Napoleon's  policy 
being  then  to  protect  the  Pope,  the  bank  of  France 
accepted  the  circulating  coins  at  their  face  value ; 
but  when  Napoleon's  policy  changed  and  the  French 
brokers  would  receive  the  debased  coin  at  only  its  real 
value,  the  French  peasantry,  then  discovering  and 
fully  appreciating  their  loss  of  two  sous  on  every 
franc  they  hoarded,  attacked  the  priests,  and  yielded 
themselves  to  a  mad  delusion  that  the  Pope  had 
moved  the  Vatican  to  Germany  and  instigated  the 
invasion  of  France.  From  the  moment  of  that  fatal  dis- 
covery the  prestige  of  the  Catholic  religion  was  broken 
down  throughout  the  kingdom ;  and  the  present  repub- 
lican and  anti-clerical  majorities  in  the  Corps  legisla- 
tive are  a  logical  consequence. 

Every  —  the  slightest — shade  of  dishonesty  cast  on 
the  monetary  transactions  of  a  government  darkens  the 
moral  and  social  atmosphere  of  the  nation,  even  when 
the  government  is  unconstitutional.  Much  more  disas- 
trous are  the  consequences  of  fraudulent  dealing  openly 
enacted  by  a  representative  government,  for  all  the 
acts  of  which  the  whole  population  of  the  republic 
must  needs  feel  itself  responsible.  The  debased  coin 
of  the  United  States  is  nothing  else  than  the  ugly 
reflection  which  the  debauched  business  conscience  of 
the  nation  sees  of  its  own  face  in  the  looking-glass  of 
its  National  Congress  of  law-makers.  Still  worse  is  the 
issue  of  legal-tender  notes  which  violate  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  money  by  carrying  no  guarantee. 

Geology  has  no  prediction  to  make  respecting  the 
future  exhaustion  of  the  precious  metals.     Even  if  this 


384  THE   FUTURE  ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND,     [lECT. 

be  enj^rossed  in  the  schedule  of  events  its  date  cannot 
be  calculated;  because,  the  innumerable  gold-washing 
places  of  both  liemispheres  indicate  an  infinite  number 
of  as  yet  unworked  auriferous  quartz  veins;  and,  ne\y 
argentiferous  regions  of  extraordinary  value  are  among 
the  most  recent  discoveries.  Refinements  in  metal- 
lurgy will  come  to  the  relief  of  deep  mining;  and,  bet- 
ter chemical  processes  will  diminish  the  waste  of  gold 
and  silver  in  the  arts. 

To  all  this  must  be  added  the  probability  of  a  more 
general  prevalence  of  peace ;  the  easy  multiplication 
and  preservation  of  gold  and  silver  work  in  private  and 
public  edifices  ;  and  that  cessation  of  the  ancient  and 
universal  practice  of  hoarding,  by  burying  C(.'iiis  in  the 
earth,  which,  first  in  one  country  and  then  in  another, 
will  be  the  natural  result  of  the  introduction  of  a 
system  of  paper  currency,  under  the  guardian  care  of 
stable  and  enlightened  republican  governments  estab- 
lished throughout  the  world. 

There  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  supply  of 
the  precious  metals  will  always  be  sufficient  for  the- 
trade  and  commerce  of  men ;  and  all  the  more  because 
due  bills,  bank  bills,  and  bills  of  credit  will  be  more 
and  more  in  demand,  relieving  coin  of  risk  of  transpor- 
tation, and  in  fact  of  every  function  except  that  of 
petty  exchange;  while  the  perfection  of  telephonic  and 
telegraphic  communication  will  make  the  transmission 
of  paper  money  itself  to  some  extent  unnecessary. 

The  future  Commerce  of  the  world  is  a  theme  too 
vast  for  even  a  fancy  sketch.  Carriers  of  goods  on 
foot,  on  horses,  asses,  camels,  oxen;  in  bark  or  hide- 
canoes,  which  men  could  lift  out  of  one  river  and  carry 
over  to  launch  in  another ;  in  coasting-boats,  hugging 
the  shore  from  headland  to  headland ;  or  in  vessels  with 
sails,  piloted  by  the  stars  —  merchants  of  the  desert,  of 
the  mountains,  of  the  islands  of  the  sea  —  appear  at  the 
earliest  dawn  of  history.  In  all  subsequent  ages 
some  kind  of  commerce  flourished  wherever  there  were 
human  beings.  Amber,  nephrite,  the  turquoise  and 
the  pearl,  gold  torques,  bronze  swords  and  chunks  of 


XV.]         THE  FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.  385 

iron  established  its  early  routes.  Rock  salt  and  textile 
fabrics  have  been  its  principal  burden.  The  discovery 
of  any  unknown  land  was  always  followed  by  the  build- 
ing of  new  marts  upon  its  coast,  the  spread  of  manufact- 
ures and  the  building  of  fleets.  The  central  sea  of  the 
world  became  a  theatre  of  commercial  competition,  war, 
and  piracy.  The  products  of  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa 
were  brought  by  caravans  to  its  shores.  India  and 
China  traded  with  the  eastern  archipelago.  Even  the 
mound-builders  of  America  had  their  general  trade 
in  Lake  Superior  copper  and  North  Carolina  mica, 
which  wove  the  interests  of  their  tribes  together,  and 
produced  a  feeble  civilization,  destined  in  the  end  to  be 
extinguished  by  the  power  of  the  red  Indian,  as  the 
civilization  of  southern  Europe  and  northern  Africa 
and  western  Asia  had  been  by  Skythic,  Teutonic  and 
Sara'cenic  invasions. 

Trade  is  the  local  exchange  on  equal  terms  of  one 
man's  works  for  another's. 

Commerce  is  the  transportation  of  cheap  goods  from 
where  they  are  superfluously  abundant  to  distant  places 
where  they  are  scarce  and  rare  and  highly  valued. 

Trade  involves  no  profit  except  such  as  represents 
the  deficiencies  of  a  man's  livelihood.  The  parties  in 
trade  have  an  equally  good  knowledge  of  the  worth 
of  the  things  bartered,  and  in  the  end  come  out  square 
with  each  other. 

The  parties  in  commerce  were  never  (until  lately) 
on  equal  terms,  except  in  one  respect:  to  wit,  there 
was  no  true  knowledge  of  the  worth  of  the  goods 
on  either  side  ;  the  whole  transaction  was  done  in  the 
dark.  The  buyer  could  know  neither  the  price  of 
the  goods  at  the  place  they  were  made,  nor  the  cost 
of  their  reaching  him.  The  seller  knew  their  prices 
where  he  got  them,  but  could  neither  calculate  his  own 
expenses  in  transporting  them  to  the  place  of  sale, 
nor  what  the  buyer  there  would  imagine  them  to  be 
worth.  Hence  all  commerce  was  a  pure  adventure, 
and  had  the  charm  of  a  gambling  risk ;  ,ind  all  com- 
mercial negotiation  was  a  slow  and  cunning  haggling 
over  prices  between  the  merchant  and  the  citizen. 


386  THE    FUTURE    ECONOMIES    OF   MANKIND.     [LECT. 

Ill  Oriental  countries,  this  essential  character  of  Com- 
merce has  bred  its  like  in  trade,  and  not  an  article  is 
bought  or  sold,  even  between  two  people  in  the  same 
village,  without  the  formality  of  a  negotiation  respect- 
ing a  pennyworth,  worthy  of  some  transaction  of  the 
Rothschilds,  or  the  cession  of  Epirus  by  the  Turkish 
government  to  Greece.  Even  in  France  and  Germany, 
travellers  are  astonished  by  the  universal  fact  that  a 
price  for  every  article  on  sale  is  at  first  demanded  higher 
than  the  seller  will  be  willing  to  take  in  the  end. 
Here,  it  is  a  mere  traditional  custom.  But  in  the  Ori- 
ent it  is  the  consequence  of  actual  ignorance  of  the  real 
price  of  the  article  in  trade,  both  on  the  part  of  the 
seller  and  on  the  part  of  tlie  buyer ;  and  as  there  are 
no  fixed  values  for  goods,  it  takes  time  for  the  buyer  to 
get  the  seller's  lowest  price,  and  for  the  seHer  to  find 
out  the  buyer's  highest. 

This  ignorance,  due  to  defective  general  intercom- 
munication, and  the  total  absence  of  a  general  advertis- 
ing medium,  like  the  press,  converts  Trade  into  Com- 
merce. On  the  other  hand,  in  the  great  cities  of  the 
West,  and  among  the  more  wide-awake  populations  of 
northern  Germany,  Belgium,  England,  and  the  United 
States,  a  perfected  system  of  mutual  information  has 
converted  Commerce  into  Trade ;  and  it  is  surely  writ- 
ten in  the  destiny  of  the  human  race  that,  as  time  rolls 
on,  and  the  local  exchange,  the  newspaper  and  the  tele- 
graph station  get  planted  in  every  nook  and  corner  of 
the  earth,  the  home  price  of  every  article  of  human 
manufacture  will  be  accurately  fixed  and  universally 
published,  and  the  sole  business  of  Commerce  will  be  to 
dechire  the  additional  cost  of  transportation,  and  then 
lapse  back  into  Trade. 

There  are  four  principal  methods  of  transporting 
goods :  by  wagon,  by  canal-boat,  by  rail-car  and  by 
steam  or  sailing  ships.  Trade  by  canal,  and  commerce 
on  tlie  sea,  are  exceptional.  Trade  on  common  roads, 
and  commerce  on  iron  tracks,  take  and  must  always 
take  the  precedency.  There  are  very  few  parts  of  the 
earth's  surface  proper  for  engineering  a  canal;  and  a 
canal,  when  made,  must  be  of  great  width  and  depth, 


XV.]         THE   FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.  387 

like  the  Erie  canal  between  the  Hudson  river  and  Lake 
Erie,  to  play  any  important  role  in  the  commerce  of  the 
world.  Even  then,  10,000  boats  will  only  carry  1,500,- 
000  tons  of  freight  at  the  rate  of  2  miles  per  hour,  the 
trip  requiring  about  two  weeks ;  *  whereas,  the  New 
York  Central  railroad,  which  runs  beside  it,  could 
carry  the  same  amount  in  the  same  time,  delivering 
it  at  the  rate  of  100,000  tons  per  day,  but  after  a 
run  of  only  one  day.  The  cost  of  freight  on  the 
canal,  however,  is  less  than  3  mills  per  ton  per  mile,  as 
against  a  cost  of  7  mills  by  rail.  The  canal  is  therefore 
used  for  slow  freight,  grain,  etc.  and  the  rail  for  express 
freight  and  live  stock.  Railways,  moreover,  can  be 
constructed  anywhere,  and  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company  alone  now  operates  7,000  miles  of  line.  The 
whole  mileage  of  railway  in  the  United  States  is  40,000 
miles,  increasing  every  year.  Along  all  these  lines  are 
innumerable  stations,  whence  freight  is  distributed  by 
horse  and  wagon  to  every  hamlet  and  farm-house  in  the 
land ;  and  the  number  of  horses  thus  employed  may 
be  estimated  from  the  fact  that  among  the  various  crops 
of  the  United  States  the  hay  crop  has  the  highest  value. 
The  tonnage  of  England's  commercial  navy  amounted 
in  1880  to  10,000,000;  that  of  all  other  countries  to 
11,000,000.  At  the  commencement  of  1880  a  tonnage  of 
430,000  was  under  construction  ;  at  the  commencement 
of  1881  a  tonnage  of  095,000 ;  indicating  not  only 
the  future  expansion  of  ocean  commerce  in  the  world, 
but  the  continued  supremacy  of  the  British  Empire  as 
a  commercial  carrier  for  the  world.  This  cannot  last 
forever ;  but  it  may  last  a  long  time.  In  course  of  time, 
the  vast  future  population  of  the  United  States  will 
requh'e  a  commensurate  lleet  to  export  its  products  of 

*  The  Erie  Canal  is  350  miles  long,  70  feet  wide  and  7  feet  deep, 
and  can  float  boats  of  240  tons  freight.  It  reduced  the  theoretical 
time  of  freight  from  Albany  to  Buffalo  from  20  to  10  days,  and  the 
cost  from  §100  to  ^10  per  ton,  at  once,  delivering  it  at  the  rate  of 
100,000  tons  a  day. 

The  actual  use  of  the  canal  falls  far  short  of  this,  for  the  tol  al 
of  all  freight  passed  both  ways  on  all  the  canals  of  Canada  in  1860 
was  only  4,270,820  tons.  In  Great  Britain,  4,700  miles  of  canal 
exist. 


388  THE  FUTURE  ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.     [LECT. 

the  sijil.  But  the  rapid  growth  of  manufactures  in 
America  will  more  and  more  confine  the  consumption 
of  meat  and  grain  within  its  borders.  Tlie  wealth  which 
England  seeks  abroad  America  will  find  at  home.  In- 
ternal trade  will  be  a  substitute  for  foreign  commerce  ; 
as  it  is  in  China.  Meanwhile  the  opening  of  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi  river  is  making  of  New  Orleans  a 
future  rival  for  New  York,  and  of  St.  Louis  a  future 
rival  for  Chicago. 

Will  War  ever  cease  upon  the  Earth  ?  is  a  question 
often  asked  and  never  answered.  The  prophecy  of  the 
second  Isaiah,  the  glorious  Unknown,  was  a  sigh  and  a 
cry  for  peace  for  the  Holy  Land.  But  so  long  as  chil- 
dren of  Cain  and  children  of  Abel  are  born  upon  the 
same  or  neighboring  soils, — these  with  the  hereditary 
virtues  of  a  love  of  peaceful  labor  and  temperate  thrift, 
those  with  a  hereditary  taint  of  laziness  and  greed  — 
Fraud  and  Theft  will  cultivate  the  arts  of  Attack  and 
Defence  into  the  science  of  War. 

As  the  classic  government  of  force,  Tyranny,  has 
always  l)een  the  eminent  realization  of  organized  and 
concentrated  Theft,  it  can  never  exist  but  as  both 
product  and  producer  of  War ;  and  as  both  proof  and 
example  of  the  prevalence  of  the  Cain  element  over 
the  Abel  element  in  any  age  and  country. 

Tyranny  evinces  also  the  insufficient  education  of  the 
masses;  for,  as  ignorance  distinguishes  the  isolated 
and  therefore  unjirotected  individual  from  the  educated 
and  therefore  united  and  powerful,  the  only  protection 
for  all  is  in  the  education  and  consequent  close  inter- 
communication and  mutual  acquaintanceshij)  of  all. 

The  spread  of  democratic  ideas  and  the  nuiltiplication 
of  republics  result  directly  from  the  increase  of  popular 
intelligence,  by  which  the  real  strength  of  the  robber 
class  gets  measured,  and  the  easy  ability  of  the  honest 
multitude  to  check  and  suppress  schemes  of  spoliation 
ap])eals  to  the  common  sense  of  the  nation. 

Theft  is  essentially  a  vice  of  the  night  and  of  loneli- 
ness. In  the  light  of  day  and  in  the  midst  of  an  active 
society,  all  crimes,  but  especially  Ihe  world's  habitual 


XV.]         THE   FUTUEE   EC0N0:MIES   OF  MANKEvD.  389 

crime,  Theft,  becomes  too  difficult.  Popular  education 
need  not  be  teclmically  moral  to  ensure  a  diminution  of 
the  rapine  of  kings  and  nobles,  the  spoliation  of  life  and 
property  by  the  cunning  and  reckless.  When  a  people 
become  well  informed  of  all  kinds  of  affairs  they  get 
into  a  condition  to  organize  intercourse  on  a  reasonable 
basis ;  to  adjust  the  various  claims  of  men  on  men ;  to 
tune  and  temper  the  great  piano-forte  of  Human  So- 
ciety ;  to  balance  rights,  and  compress  wrongs  Avithin 
the  narrowest  limits.  Small  communities,  in  which  all 
know  all,  are  necessarily  better  governed,  or  govern 
themselves  better,  than  large  ones.  Religion  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  it.  Morality  is  not  in  any  sense  the 
cause,  but  is  the  effect  of  it.  And  after  Good  Order 
follows  naturally  Peace. 

Foreign  interi^erence  is  thereafter  the  only  danger  to 
be  dreaded.  Every  ill  educated,  badly  governed  coun- 
try is  a  standing  menace  to  its  better  educated  and  self- 
governed  neighbors.  The  great  historical  mission  of  the 
Republic  of  the  United  States  is  to  illustrate  these 
truths  on  a  grade  scale,  and  with  exceptional  advantages 
of  time  and  situation.  But  Switzerland,  Belgium,  and 
now  France,  have  also  afforded  fair  and  fine  examples. 
Other  nationalities  are  already  inchoate  republics,  and 
will  each  in  its  turn  realize  the  principle  of  general 
knowledge,  a  better  order,  and  greater  safety. 

When  a  war  is  over,  each  soldier,  after  parading  about 
awhile,  making  and  listening  to  patriotic  speeches,  and 
getting  back  into  the  old  routine  of  daily  business,  hangs 
up  liis  rifle  on  its  hooks,  where  it  has  leave  to  rust  as  a 
harmless  memento  of  the  past.  So,  nations  will,  in  time 
and  turn,  put  away  their  standing  armies,  when  there 
are  no  more  kings  and  nobles,  but  only  artisans  and 
tradesmen,  scholars  and  physicians  and  artists  left  in  the 
land ;  with  here  and  there  a  thief,  a  sot  or  an  imbecile, 
who  will  be  cared  for,  each  in  a  proper  way. 

When  this  process  has  been  fully  realized  in  all  coun- 
tries —  those  now  savage  requiring  of  course  the  longest 
time  for  it  —  it  seems  unreasonable  to  fancy  the  con- 
tinual existence  of  War. 

But  meanwhile? 


390  THE   rUTUKE   ECONOMIES   OP   MANKIND.     [LECT. 

Ah !  meanwliilc,  wars  nlust  needs  recur ;  and  every 
nation,  not  cut  off  from  the  rest  by  the  ocean,  must  sub- 
mit to  military  drill,  and  stand  ready  to  repulse  invasion. 
But  is  more  than  that  needful  ?  Probably  the  growing 
intelligence  of  Christendom  will  say  No. 

The  experience  of  the  Great  Republic  in  the  greatest 
of  all  wars  has  proved  two  things :  1.  that  all  parts  of  a 
nation  must  be  equally  well  educated  if  civil  wars  are 
to  be  avoided ;  and  2.  that  standing  armies  are  not  ab- 
solutely necessary  either  for  attack  or  for  defence. 

The  latter  truth  is  enforced  upon  the  consideration  of 
the  world  by  the  powerlessness  of  the  standing  army  of 
France  in  its  last  war.  It  was  precisely  the  supposed 
existence  of  an  efficient  French  army  that  occasioned 
that  war ;  although  its  true  causes  were  dated  back  in 
the  times  of  Louis  XIV,  times  of  rapine  and  fraud  par 
excellence. 

A  standing  army  represents  enthroned  rapine  and 
fraud,  whether  on  the  steppes  of  Russia,  on  the  plain  of 
the  Ganges,  or  in  the  bogs  of  Ireland.  An  army  of  vol- 
unteers is,  on  the  contrary,  the  people;  confederated 
under  oath  to  remain  a  people,  or  to  die  rather  than  be 
enslaved.  But  such  an  army  to  be  successful  must  be 
honest  in  its  aims  and  claims,  and  educated  by  all  kinds 
of  work  for  all  kinds  of  action.  Given  this,  it  scorns 
delays,  disasters,  sufferings  and  defeats ;  it  knows  itself 
invincible  at  last.  Men  who  build  locomotives,  and 
tunnel  mountains,  and  invent  the  electric  light,  and 
pipe  petroleum  a  hundred  miles,  and  hang  steel  bridges 
across  Niagara,  and  transact  their  business  by  wire,  and 
change  their  government  with  the  regularity  of  clock- 
work every  four  years  without  disturbance,  can  on  an 
emergency  overwhelm  their  enemies  with  destruction, 
sink  hostile  ironclads  with  torpedoes,  and  improvise 
army  for  army  as  fast  as  their  invaders  approach. 

If  it  be  the  destiny  of  the  human  race  for  all  nations 
to  become  educated,  enlightened,  equipped  with  the 
apparatus  of  civilization,  and  exercised  in  self-govern- 
ment, then,  it  seems  to  be  the  destiny  of  manldnd  to 
attain  to  universal  order  and  to  universal  peace. 

But  there  resides  in  the  very  body  of  war  the  subtle 


XV.]         THE   FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OF  MANKIND.  391 

seeds  of  its  own  dissolution.  For  it  is  evident  tliat  the 
perfection  of  defence  must  in  the  end  balance  the  per- 
fection of  attack,  in  military  operations  on  a  large  scale. 
The  improvement  of  arms  of  j^recision  has  already 
greatly  widened  the  interval  between  forces  in  the  act 
of  conflict.  This  changes  the  sentiment  of  soldiers; 
which  used  to  be  a  personal  hatred,  generated  and  in- 
tensified by  frequent  bayonet  charges  and  musketr}^  at 
close  quarters.  The  brutality  of  cavalry  movements  is 
also  lessened  by  the  rapidity  of  breech-loading  artillery- 
practice  keeping  off  the  approach  of  mounted  squadrons; 
which  are  now  detailed  for  other  service.  Sieges  are 
no  longer  scenes  of  long  protracted  devil-revelry,  per- 
manently demoralizing  whole  regions.  Vast  fortresses 
require  vast  armies  of  besiegers  ;  and  when  one  or  two 
capitulate,  the  war  is  over.  It  only  remains  to  substi- 
tute nitro-glycerine  for  gunpowder  to  make  destruction 
too  terrible  to  be  practised  by  reasonable  beings. 

Will  the  Legislation  of  the  future  be  simpler  or  more 
complex  —  less  or  more  vague  —  more  or  less  opera- 
tive;—  more  or  less  satisfactory  to  all  —  than  it  is  at 
present  ? 

To  speak  of  the  formal  legislation  of  past  ages  is  to 
talk  of  the  imperious  edicts  of  some  conqueror,  the  arbi- 
trary enactments  of  some  oligarchy,  or  some  rare  and 
fugitive  code  of  a  casual  tribal  law-giver.  But  in  fact 
mankind  has  always  spent  life  under  a  double  regime^ 
the  permanent  and  greater  part  of  which  has  formulated 
itseli"  in  what  is  called  sometimes  Custom,  and  sometimes 
the  unwritten  Common  Law. 

Legal  science  recognizes  this  as  the  fundamental  basis 
of  all  current  legislation.  Its  principles  are  those  of 
property  in  life,  libert}'  to  work,  ownership  of  the  jiro- 
ceeds  of  Avork  by  the  worker,  family  duty  and  good 
neighborship.  jModern  legislation  occupies  itself  mainly 
in  the  writing  out  of  this  unwritten  common  law;  codi- 
fyuig  and  commenting  on  it ;  simplifying  and  ajjplying 
it  to  occasions  as  they  arise;  and  providing  it  with 
executive  sanctions. 

The  study  of  it  enlarges  legal  science ;  and  the  prac- 


392  THE    FCTTURE   ECONOMIES  OF   MANKIND.     [LECT. 

tice  of  it  supports  the  legal  profession  —  a  class  of  ex- 
perts, who  naturally  gravitate,  as  lawyers  to  the  courts 
of  justice,  and  as  law-makers  to  the  halls  of  legislation. 
These  experts  in  law  are  the  arguers  and  deciders  of  all 
questions  in  controversy  between  man  and  man  in  re- 
spect of  honesty  and  fraud;  and  between  society  and  its 
members  in  regard  to  every  act  of  crime.  They  repre- 
sent the  common  law  of  all  ages  as  interpreted  into  the 
thinking  and  feeling  of  the  day  and  place.  They  arc 
the  voice  of  every  class  of  mankind  complaining  of  in- 
conveniences or  pleading  excuses.  They  are  the  framers 
of  all  contracts  and  the  detectives  of  all  disorder ;  but 
not  as  inspired  from  without  society,  or  from  a  higher 
source  of  wisdom  and  justice,  but  as  society  itself  would 
do  this,  of  itself  and  for  itself,  if  it  were  not  too  busy. 

Therefore,  although  Law  and  Justice  are  terms  stand- 
ing in  the  history  of  jjhilosophy  for  the  absolutely  good 
in  regard  to  the  ordering  of  society,  they  are  also  and 
universally,  in  the  actual  life  of  the  world,  merely  terms 
standing  in  the  minds  of  men  for  the  best  social  ar- 
rangements which  they  have  become  acquainted  with 
up  to  date.  Beyond  this  their  meaning  cannot  reach. 
Beyond  tliis  lawyers  cannot  go.  Yet,  beyond  this  a 
certain  jiercentage  of  law-makers  are  constantly  striv- 
ing to  press  forward  —  off  from  the  ground  of  present 
usage,  on  to  some  surer  ground  of  a  more  perfect  jus- 
tice and  morality.  These  advanced  men  however  can 
only  proceed  at  such  a  rate  as  will  permit  the  crowd  to 
see  and  follow  them ;  and  the  lost  prophets  of  legislation 
have  been  leaders  whose  rapid  pace  m  advance  of  their 
times  carried  them  out  of  sight. 

Our  word  7norals  is  the  Latin  wos,  custom,  mores, 
manners.  It  comes  from  the  Coptic  and  old  Egyptian 
Mes,  a  child,  to  be  born,  to  imagine  (conceive?)  Max^  to 
introduce,  ilier,  to  rule  over,  superintend,  bind.*  That 
is  to  say,  family  order  preceded  the  regulations  of  society 
at  large,  and  consisted  of  1.  the  autliority  of  the  })arent 
over  the  child,  and  2.  the  riglits  and  duties  of  children 
in  the  family.  When  the  family  was  enlarged  to  a 
nation,  Morality  became  Common  Law. 

*  Ma  and  Mat,  truth  ;   ^falc,  to  think,  consider,  and  regulate. 


XV.]         THE   FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.  393 

If,  as  it  seems,  the  life  of  the  whole  race  is  destined  to 
parallel  the  life  of  an  individual  man,  then,  the  morality 
of  its  past  childhood  (the  common  law  of  its  present 
adolescence)  is  destined  to  grow  into  the  mature  and 
more  transcendental  legislation  of  its  future  manhood, 
powerful,  energetic,  wise  and  good. 

Law  and  Legislation  are  allied  terms ;  but  the  distinc- 
tion between  them  is  notable.  They  are  related  as 
cause  and  effect,  principle  and  practice.  Legislation  is 
the  enactment  of  laws. 

As  Laiv  is  represented,  on  the  one  side,  by  Usage^ 
which  is  common  law  based  on  equity, — and  on  the  other 
side,  by  Legal  enactments,  which  are  special  permissions, 
prohibitions,  limitations  and  sanctions  in  the  shape  of 
punishment  (never  in  the  shape  of  reward) — so  Legis- 
lation consists  of  both  Constitutional  ijrovisos,  and  Par- 
liamentary practice. 

The  equation, —  Common  law  :  Legal  enactments  : : 
Constitutional  provision  :  Parliamentary  practice,  is, 
however,  analogical,  not  homological.  For,  enactments 
are  attempts  to  specify  and  enforce  customary  justice ; 
whereas  the  provisions  of  a  constitutional  convention 
are  attempts  to  redress  the  licentious  liberty  of  the  legis- 
lature, by  defining  its  functions,  limiting  its  powers,  and 
regulating  its  practice.* 

Under  Absolute  monarchy,  all  the  rights  of  legisla- 
tion centre  in  the  king.  The  parliament  or  legislature, 
if  there  be  one,  is  merely  his  cabinet  council. 

Under  Constitutional  monarchy  all  the  rights  of  leg- 
islation centre  in  some  voting  class,  whose  elected  dele- 
gates control  the  king. 

Under  a  Re[)nblic,  based  on  universal  suffrage,  the 
whole  nation  (theoretically)  convenes  by  delegates  to  ar- 
range both  the  constitutional  scope,  and  the  legislative 
practice  of  human  rights. 

Delegation  hy  election  is  therefore  the  radical  principle 
of  mcidern  legislation. 

Hoiv  to  ferfect  the  modus  operandi  of  popular  elections^ 

*  "  Parliamentary  practice  "  technically  so  called  is  merely  a  vol- 
untary and  convenient  self-assumption  of  supplementary  rules  by 
the  Legislature. 


394       THE  FUTURE  econo:mies  op  mankind,   [lect. 

for  selecting  and  empowering  certain  individuals,  to  legal- 
ize property  and  conduct,  for  multitudes,  is  the  question 
of  the  future. 

To  suppose  that  this  question  in  any  country  belongs 
to  the  past,  is  to  ignore  the  progress  of  mankind  in 
equity. 

When  kings  have  been  obliged  to  grant  the  suffrage, 
they  have  racked  their  wits  to  make  it  as  innocuous  as 
possible  to  their  prerogative. 

In  like  manner,  with  every  change  of  class  or  party 
domination,  the  suffrage  shifts  its  garb.  At  the  present 
moment  Scrutin  de  liste  and  Scrutin  d'arrondissement 
are  watchwords  of  civil  war  in  France.  Much  of  the 
time  of  American  politicians  is  spent  in  devising  schemes 
for  apportioning  the  suffrage  to  population  (or  popula- 
tion to  suffrage)  in  view  of  coming  elections.  District- 
ing a  State,  or  "  Gerrymandering"  a  district,  has  become 
a  vile  fine  art  in  America.  Human  cupidity  distorts  the 
straight  lines  of  Legislation,  by  first  notching  the  edge 
of  the  ruler — Suffrage. 

One  fundamental  maxim  must  come  to  be  acknowl- 
edged: No  man  has  a  right  to  express  an  opinion  who 
does  not  knoiv  the  subject.  And  when  the  subject  is 
the  fitness  of  a  candidate  to  act  as  legislator,  expression 
of  opinion  means — a  vote. 

Consequently,  no  man  has  a  right  to  vote  for  a  repre- 
sentative of  whose  fitness  for  office  he  is  ignorant. 

But  thousands  vote  for  statesmen  of  whom  they  can 
know  absolutely  nothing.  Millions  vote,  every  four 
years,  for  the  most  powerful  monarch  on  earth,  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  in  complete  ignorance 
of  his  character  and  abilities. 

The  radical  cure  for  so  radical  an  evil  is  to  be  found 
not  in  the  suppression  of  popular  suffrage;  but  in  its 
localization  ivithin   the   limits   of  personal  acquaintance. 

This  amounts  to  saying  that  the  natural  form  of  gov- 
ernment is  Hierarchy. 

A  republican  hierarchy  will  perhaps  be  the  govern- 
ment of  the  future.  The  old  English  system  of  "  Hun- 
dreds "  will  be  its  basis.  The  elect  of  the  Hundreds 
will  be  electors  for  Ward  or  Township  officials ;  these  in 


XV,]         THE   FUTURE   ECONOMIES   OF   MANKIND.  395 

turn  will  elect  County  officers;  these,  in  their  turn, 
State  officers;  these,  Congress;  and  Congress  the  Execu- 
tive of  the  nation.  Personal  acquaintance  and  personal 
responsibility  will  then  react  upon  each  other.  Con- 
ventions on  occasion  will  regulate  and  supplement  the 
system. 

It  is  not  to  be. expected  that  people  will  yield  readily 
or  soon  to  such  an  innovation.  It  will  be  called  reaction- 
ary, retrogressive.  The  Church  of  Rome  and  the  So- 
ciety of  Jesus  will  be  cited  as  warnings.  But  Nature 
cares  nothing  for  warnings;  neither  does  the  true 
patriot,  the  true  philosopher,  nor  a  fully  enlightened 
people.  Fate  is  the  embodiment  of  Patience.  The 
Great  Republic  has  only  lived  one  century.  Its  con- 
stitution was  constructed  for  five  or  six  millions  of 
people.  In  thirty  years  from  now  a  hundred  millions 
will  find  themselves  irked  by  it.  Children  are  already 
born-  who  mil  not  die  before  subscribing  themselves 
citizens  of  a  nation  of  two  hundred  millions  of  souls. 
By  that  time  forty  millions  of  male  votes  and  forty 
millions  of  female  votes  will  he  cast  together.  The 
world  has  not  yet  imagined  such  a  contingency;  but 
the  powers  of  destiny  are  preparing  for  it;  and  the 
American  people  are  drilling  at  Organization^  without 
knowing  that  when  marcliing-orders  arrive  the  field  of 
action  must  be  Suffrage. 

The  common  man  values  more  liighly  his  worthless 
vote  for  Governor  or  President  than  his  priceless  vote 
for  School  Commissioner,  Constable,  or  Butter  inspec- 
tor. When  the  woman  comes  to  the  poll,  she  will 
arrest  this  far-off  gaze  of  the  man,  and  turn  it  upon  the 
really  important  interests  surrounding  the  home,  and  the 
work-shop.  Then,  the  hierarchical  principle,  which  now 
works  concealed  in  party  politics  to  the  mischief  of 
society,  will  sit  with  dignity,  and  act  beneficently,  on 
the  throne  of  constitutional  prerogative. 

The  disturbing  element  of  national  politics  is  city  life. 

The  time  will  come  when  the  difference  between  city 
and  country  will  be  estimated  and  defined  and  taken 
into  account  in  all  legislation,  both  political  aiid  volun- 


396  THE  FUTURE  ECONOMIES   OP   MANKIND. 

tary.  Legislating  experts  will  then  be  divided  into  two 
classes,  differing  from  each  other  as  completely  as 
mechanical  experts  differ  from  chemical  experts.  No 
city  lawyers  will  be  permitted  to  have  a  voice  in  legislat- 
ing for  the  country ;  no  country  lawyers  for  the  city. 

When  each  ward  in  a  city  shall  be  made  so  small  that 
its  affairs  can  be  regulated  by  persons  personally  well 
known  to  and  elected  by  all  the  residents  in  such  ward ; 
— ^when  each  small  ward  shall  have  its  central  edifice 
arranged  conveniently  and  spaciously  for  all  the  public 
uses  or  common  purposes  of  a  ward  —  with  an  exchange 
room  for  public  conference  and  discussion  —  with  a  com- 
plete library  free  to  all  —  with  legislative  rooms  for 
committees  of  all  kind  —  with  judicial  rooms  for  arbi- 
tration —  with  a  hall  arranged  solely  and  specially  for 
public  festivals  and  music — with  a  theatre  room  for 
school  exhibitions,  concerts  and  dramas — with  a  ward 
museum  of '  science,  and  an  art  gallery  of  statues  and 
paintings  —  then,  competition  of  a  noble  kind  shall  pre- 
vail between  these  ward  edifices  and  the  wards  which 
own  and  use  them;  and  the  same  social  spiritual  force 
which  now  sustains  our  imperfect  church  and  sunday- 
school  system,  shall  transfer  its  activity  to,  and  find  a 
more  fruitful  exercise  for,  its  functions  in  this  practical 
sphere  of  watcliing  over  and  edifying,  in  all  senses, 
every  individual  inhabitant  of  the  ward,  old  and  young, 
rich  and  poor,  strong  and  feeble  alike. 

This  is  what  the  Future  Destiny  of  Man  in  city  life 
holds  up  to  view.  Something  like  this  will  be  the  ulti- 
mate outward  shape  taken  by  the  genius  of  modern 
Socialism  and  Communism,  flourishing  on  its  only  native 
soil — the  city  pavement. 

In  this  regenerated  body  the  vices  of  the  old  spirit 
will  be  ameliorated  to  genuine  virtues. 

Aristocrac}''  will  also  more  mightily  prevail;  inas- 
much as,  by  restricting  the  locus  and  limit  of  the  suf- 
frage, the  wisest,  strongest  and  most  useful  people  in 
each  precinct  will  be  known  and  recognized  as  the  best 
class,  and  be  honored  and  vested  with  power.  This 
honor  will  be  accepted  as  a  sufficient  reward,  and  the 
old  vice  of  Aristocracy,  the  over-appropriation  of  special 
and  personal  privileges  to  itself,  will  be  suppressed. 


LECTURE  XVI. 

THE  INTELLECTUAI.  AND  MORAL  DESTINY  OF  THE  RACE. 

Language  is  the  real  cement  of  a  nation;  and  the 
chief  barrier  between  nations.  In  the  seclusion  to 
which  a  nation  is  confined  by  a  language  peculiar  to 
itself,  its  morality  and  religion,  its  tendencies  in  science 
and  its  criticism  of  art,  become  fixed  national  manner- 
isms; distinguishing  its  character  —  we  may  say,  its 
personality  —  from  that  of  every  other  nation  speaking 
a  different  vernacular  and  publishing  a  different  litera- 
ture. 

This  happens  not  so  much  through  the  habitual  use 
of  a  different  vocabulary.  It  is  rather  in  some  peculiar- 
ity of  verbal  construction  and  of  grammatical  inflections ; 
in  the  employment  of  favorite  particles  and  untrans- 
latable interjections;  in  a  certain  style  of  statement, 
direct  or  inverted,  by  short,  sharp  sentences  or  by  sen- 
tences protracted,  parenthetic,  involved  and  introverted, 
that  we  must  look  for  the  influence  of  language  upon 
national  character.  The  rugged  strength  of  the  Roman 
as  contrasted  with  the  elegant  Greek, — the  brusque  and 
honest  directness  of  the  Englishman  as  contrasted  with 
the  Parisian,  is  more  than  typified  —  is  partly  brought 
about  —  by  the  absence  of  the  article,  or  the  absence  of 
case  endings,  from  the  vulgar  tongue.  The  obscure 
prosiness  of  German  literature,  secured  by  the  one  rule 
of  projecting  the  prepositional  prefix  of  verbs  to  the  end 
of  the  sentence,  has  had  its  effect  upon  the  thinking  of 
the  whole  nation.  The  parenthesis,  enforced  in  the  ex- 
pression, has  reacted  on  the  logic  of  ideas.  Opportuni- 
ties for  mystifying  the  reader,  being  multiplied  by  the 


398  THE   INTELLECTUAL   AXD   MORAL  [LECT. 

indefinitely  extensible  cliain-work  of  a  sentence,  have 
ended  by  rendering  the  writer  insensible  to  the  risks  of 
self-mystifi  cation. 

The  peculiarity  of  German  metaphysics  may  be  laid 
at  the  door  of  what  is  wrongly  enough  called  the  rich- 
ness and  flexibility  of  the  German  language ;  just  as 
Locke's  and  Hume's  severe  thinking  is  greatly  due  to 
what  is  with  equal  injustice  called  the  baldness  and 
rigidity  of  English  speech.  When  an  unlimited  liberty 
to  compound  long  words  is  granted,  the  language  of 
tliinkers  gets  beyond  the  easy  criticism  of  their  readers ; 
and  so,  unquestioned  mental  dictation  becomes  first 
irresponsible,  then  arrogant,  and  finally  absurd.  But 
when  logical  terms,  postulates,  and  conclusions  are  com- 
pelled by  the  genius  of  a  national  language  like  the 
English  to  present  themselves  in  single  file,  they  are 
easily  reviewed,  and  must  keep  their  regimental  uniform 
and  equipments  clean  and  efficient. 

The  effect  upon  the  literature  of  the  nation  is  cumu- 
lative. And  the  effect  of  its  literature  on  the  character 
of  a  nation  is  cumulative.  In  the  lajDse  of  ages,  whole 
peoples  become  thus  capable  of  constantly  and  on  all  the 
lines  of  life,  misunderstanding  each  other.  Granted  the 
stirpal  distinctiveness  of  Celt  and  Teuton,  there  is  more 
in  the  guttural  sound  of  the  Swabiaii  ch  or  the  Prussian 
k  to  make  them  aliens  in  Paris  than  in  all  the  history  of 
the  past ;  for  it  affects  ever}^  individual  Frenchman  at 
every  moment  of  intercourse.  The  one  word  guess,  al- 
though brought  from  England  to  America  in  the  "  May- 
flower," is  a  redder  rag  to  inflame  the  national  animosity 
of  John  Bull  against  the  Yankee  matadore,  than  the 
tariff  act  of  1844;  because  the  one  may  become  a  for- 
g;)tten  wrong;  the  other  continues  to  be  an  ever-fresh 
disgust. 

Enough  for  illustration.  Ancient  history  is  full  of 
such.  The  modern  world  is  kept  in  chronic  warfare  by 
them.  The  spread  of  one  language,  then,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  rest,  must  tend  to  the  future  mutual  good- 
understanding  of  mankind.  If  that  language  be  a  ner- 
vous, accurate,  and  copions  method  of  expressing  botli 
facts  and  ideas,  embodied  in  a  literature  of  absolutely 


XVI.]  DESTINY  OF   THE   RACE,  399 

all  that  is  known,  tliouo^ht,  conjectured  and  proposed, 
produced  with  lightning-like  speed,  in  infinite  abundance, 
—  if,  in  a  word,  the  English  language  and  literature  be 
evidently  taking  possession  of  the  world,  and  will  in 
another  hundi-ed  years  be  spoken  or  understood  by  a 
fourth  part  of  mankind, —  then,  the  destiny  of  man  for 
a  more  peaceful,  useful,  and  noble  existence  obtains  one 
more  guarantee. 

Inside  of  the  regional  limits  of  each  language  spoken 
on  earth  exist  many  provincial  dialects  of  it,  respect- 
ing which  the  considerations  just  stated  hold  good  Avith 
moderated  force.  Consequently  the  spread  of  a  lan- 
guage over  the  earth's  surface  does  not  involve  the 
destruction  of  patois,  or  dialects  of  sjjeech^  but  their  mul- 
tiplication. But  the  spread  of  one  literature  must  extir- 
pate other  literatures,  or  dialects  of  ideas.  Provincial 
expressions,  like  individual  tones  of  voice,  will  continue 
to  make  the  intercourse  of  mankind  variously  pictur- 
esque; and  the  birthplace  of  people  will  be  recogniza- 
ble b}'  subtile  indications.  But  a  genuine  community 
of  ideas,  and  an  honest  co-operation  for  realizing  them, 
will  as  plainly  stamp  future  ages  of  man's  history  as 
the  superstitious  hatred  of  each  other's  languages  has 
stamped  the  past  history  of  nations. 

In  the  beginnings  of  history  Speech  was  recognized 
as  the  expression  of  character;  and  the  most  recent 
thinkers  can  advance  not  one  step  beyond  this  idea. 
The  inner  life  of  every  animal  makes  itself  outward 
(utters  itself)  by  some  appropriate  vocal  organ.  By 
the  sounds  of  their  voices  we  know  them,  and  by  the 
words  of  their  mouth  the  primal  language-makers  named 
them ;  as  our  children  spontaneously  do  now.  To  hear 
the  Vox  humana  stop  play  always  excites  the  peculiar 
pleasure  of  astonishment,  because  it  is  known  to  belong 
elsewhere,  and  is  a  delightful  intruder.  We  expect 
hoarse  and  coarse  language  from  the  carnivora,  and  from 
savages;  fine  modulated  tones  and  various  discourses 
from  cultivated  creatures.  The  mocking  bird's  reper- 
toire depends  upon  the  populousness  of  its  native  woods 
and  fields.  The  parrot's  tones  may  be  organically 
croaking  and  screeching,  but  its  high-pitched  intellect 


400  THE    INTELLECTUAL   AND    MOKAL  [LECT. 

allows  it  to  master  many  phrases  if  surrounded  by  nu- 
merous talkers. 

Listen  to  the  monotonous,  invariable,  space-penetrat- 
ing bleat  of  sheep  and  low  of  kine,  the  horse's  neigh,  the 
crow's  caw,  the  chirp  of  the  katydid,  the  street  cry  of 
the  milkman  in  the  morning.  Why  so  monotonous,  so 
invariable,  so  far-reaching?  Becav.se  it  expresses  only 
some  one  idea,  under  pressure  of  instant  and  pressing 
necessity.  Because  it  expresses  some  one  intellectual 
phenomenon,  and  leaves  all  the  rest  of  the  universe  of 
thought  to  be  elsewhere  and  otherwise  expressed.  Be- 
cause the  soul  of  the  sheep,  the  horse,  the  crow,  is  an 
embryo  soul,  enclosed  in  a  body  perfect  in  babyhood, 
and  never  to  advance  beyond  the  narrowest  limits  dur- 
ing the  few  months  of  its  earthly  existence.  What  it 
is  and  what  it  wants  it  utters  in  its  cry, —  nothing  more, 
—  one  cry  suffices  to  express  it  all. 

The  monotonous  wailing,  and  cooing  of  the  human 
baby  tells  the  same  story  of  a  limited  but  precise  knowl- 
edge of  vital  necessities;  a  loud,  insistent  petition 
for  help,  food,  comfort,  love,  from  the  Creator  in  sur- 
rounding Nature.  When  the  child,  after  j^assing 
through  years  of  experience,  becomes  a  man,  invested 
with  dominion  over  Nature,  and  inspired  with  creative 
faculties  of  his  own,  his  infantile  monotones  become 
modulated  without  limits,  as  the  plaintive  schlag  of  the 
nightingale  passes  into  its  brilliant  and  exhaustless 
carol. 

The  noisy  monotonous  chatter  of  vulgar  or  mal-edu- 
cated  people  of  both  sexes  is  simply  an  imitation  of  the 
monotonous,  uninflected,  barren  gabble  of  the  lower 
creatures;  while  it  is  as  perfect  an  expression  of  the 
inner  life,  as  needful  and  satisfying  an  exercise  of  the 
half-developed  brain,  and  as  completel}''  successful  a 
process  for  establishing  community  of  sentiment  and 
action,  on  the  wlnjle,  as  if  it  were  the  table  talk  of  Soc- 
rates and  his  disciples. 

Educate  these  chatterers — discipline  them  by  sorrow 
and  by  labor  —  cultivate  tliem  by  study  and  by  travel  — 
fill  their  souls  ^vith  holy  emotions  and  their  minds  with 
varied  knowledge — teach  their  hands   the  arts  of  life 


XVI.]  DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.  401 

and  their  taste  the  beauties  of  nature  —  and,  gradually, 
fhc  chatter  dies  aAvay  and  language  comes  to  take  its 
place. 

We  predict  then  for  mankind  in  the  future, —  when 
a  more  general  and  generous  distribution  of  wealth  and 
leisure  shall  produce  its  natural  consequence,  a  greater 
variety  of  occupations,  more  movement  among  men  and 
women, — that  Human  Language  will  become  more  copi- 
ous and  fluent  accordingly. 

The  distinction  between  spoken  language  and  litera- 
ture must,  however,  be  taken  into  strict  account  in  all 
speculations  about  the  future.  This  is  taught  by  the 
well  known  history  of  the  Latin  language,  which  be- 
came the  veliicle  of  communication  between  the  many 
ill-coupled  provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  after- 
wards between  all  the  countries  of  Cliristendom,  among 
a  vast  population  speaking  wholly  different  languages. 
It  was  the  Latin  literature  that  accomplished  this  re- 
sult. The  clergy  translated  their  latin  ideas  into  every 
vernacular,  and  in  the  end  latinized  the  speech  of  the 
people.  English  words  are  thus  becoming  domiciled 
in  all  kinds  of  languages  and  will  gradually  expel  their 
synonymes,  and  introduce  grammatical  forms  adapted 
to  themselves.  The  Mandarin  literature,  with  its  own 
l)roper  dialect,  is  now  —  at  the  end  of  several  centuries 
—  comprehended  and  employed  in  all  the  provinces  of 
the  Chinese  Empire,  although  each  province  speaks  a 
language  incomiDrehensible  to  the  people  of  other  prov- 
inces. 

The  more  literature  is  multiplied  the  speedier  comes 
the  day  when  men  will  use  a  common  speech.  But  the 
increase  of  French  and  German  literature,  by  the  side 
of  English,  will  retard  the  adoption  of  English  as  a  com- 
mon human  speech.  What  gives  English  the  chances 
of  the  field  is,  1.  the  English  love  of  colonization  as  op- 
posed to  the  French  and  Italian  passion  for  home  ;  and 
2.  the  perfect  willingness  which  the  Germans  and  the 
Irish  show  to  settle  in  English  colonies  and  adopt  the 
English  language  as  their  own. 

The  literature  of  Christendom  has  suffered  two  im- 


402  THE   INTELLECTUAL   AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

portant  physical  changes:  1.  the  pamphlet  of  the  politi- 
cian has  been  absorbed  into  the  newspaper ;  and  2.  the 
folios  of  the  learned  have  been  replaced  by  octavos. 

Belles-lettres  uses  now  the  monthly  magazine  as  its 
chief  vehicle,  as  the  nobleman  has  learned  to  ride  in 
the  railway  wagon  and  the  fine  lady  in  the  street  car 
alongside  of  common  people.  The  sciences  adopt  a 
similar  vehicle  of  publication,  while  learned  societies 
are*  casting  their  memoirs  more  and  more  in  the  new 
mould  of  "Journals,"  or  "Proceedings,"  so  as  to  hasten 
and  extend  their  issue,  compelling  their  authors  to 
adopt  a  more  condensed  mode  of  statement  and  a  more 
matter-of-fact  style.  A  species  of  newspaper  for  science 
has  come  into  existence  —  like  the  London  Nature  — 
to  announce  at  once  whatever  seems  of  interest  or 
promises  to  be  important. 

Meantime,  books  never  fail ;  books  large  and  small ; 
books  that  have  cost  a  lifetime  of  hard  work ;  books 
that  are  the  ephemeral  brood  of  empty  brains ;  books 
on  every  conceivable  and  inconceivable  subject  of 
human  meditation ;  books  by  the  million  for  the  mill- 
ion, and  books  never  read  but  by  recluses;  books  at 
once  consigned  to  oblivion,  still-born  abortions  of  un- 
happy love ;  and  books  heralded  by  the  renown  of  the 
author's  genius,  long  waited  for,  at  once  enthroned 
among  the  glories  of  the  age,  and  destined  to  en- 
lighten, charm  or  sanctify  successive  generations. 
Judged  by  the  test  of  these,  the  world  is  growing 
younger  as  it  grows  older,  and  like  an  incipient  vol- 
cano, the  internal  heat  of  God's  intelligence  glows  more 
and  more  toward  its  surface. 

That  some  grand  law  of  constant  force  operates  in 
the  production  of  literature,  as  in  the  harvests  of  the 
soil,  in  the  balance  of  the  animal  creation,  and  even,  as 
statistics  prove,  in  the  annual  percentages  and  propor- 
tions of  accidents,  idiocy,  insanity  and  crime,  any 
modern  list  of  books  will  show.  One  such  has  just 
been  published  by  Heiurich,  of  Leipzig,  in  the  Zeit- 
schrift  of  the  German  Geological  Society,  No.  90,  Vol.  XV. 


XVI.]  DESTDfY  OF   THE  RACE.  403 

The  bibliography  of   Germany  for  the  years  1879  and 
1880  is  summed  up  thus:  — 

1879       1880 
German  books  of  all  kinds  * 14,179     14,941 

School  books  and  others  for  the  young,      ....  2,175  2.446 

Law,  politics,  statistics,  conveyancing,       ....  1,683  1,557 

Theologv 1,304  1,390 

Belles-lettres 1,170  1,209 

Medicine,        732  790 

Natural  history,  chemistry,  pharmacy,        ....  841  787 

Historical  works 680  752 

Popular  works,  almanacs, 642  657 

Fine  arts,  stenography,  archseoloG^,  mythology,     .  481  533 

Modem  languages,  old  German  literature,     .    .     .  485  506 

Agriculture, 421  433 

Miscellaneous  \Tritings, 378  423 

Ai'chitecture,  railways,  engineering,  mines,  navi- 
gation   384  403 

Bibliography,  encyclopaedias, 278  377 

Geography,  travels, 306  356 

War,      ." 337  353 

[Maps, 300  301 

JIathematics,  astronomy, 158  201 

Philosophy, 139  125 

Forests  and  game, 103  112 

Freemasonry, 21  20 

And  such  must  be  the  supply  of  intellectual  food 
furnished  to  every  future  generation,  impro"vdng  in  qual- 
ity as  the  world  grows  wiser  and  better,  and  in  quantity 
with  the  demand  for  it. 

But  it  is  asked:  Will  not  the  practical  supplant  the 
imaginative?  Shall  not  speculation  cease  with  the 
perfection  of  science?  and  poetry  with  the  dissipation  of 
error  and  superstition?  and  the  drama  be  degraded  to 
the  level  of  the  text-book?  and  all  fiction  become  the 
mere  story-telling  of  traveller's  adventures,  or  a  realistic 
portraiture  of  society?  Shall  the  world  ever  know 
another  Homer,  Milton,  Shakespeare,  Kant,  or  Thomas 
a  Kempis? — As  well  ask  if  the  genius  of  creation  is 
exhausted.  As  well  ask  if  the  heart  of  the  world  is  des- 
tined to  chronic  ossification,  or  fatty  degeneration.     As 

*  The  author  is  not  responsible  for  this  total.  The  table  is  given 
as  a  quotation. 


404  THE   INTELLECTUAL   AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

well  ask  if  in  future  ages  babes  are  to  issue  from 
their  mothers'  wombs  monsters  of  maturity  or  senility. 
For  so  long  as  infancy  shall  crow  on  every  mother's  lap, 
and  marriage  follow  true  love  of  boys  and  girls,  so  long 
will  rhymes  be  sung  and  music  lead  the  dance ;  so  long 
will  the  theatre  and  opera  house  be  crowded,  and  new 
Mozarts  and  Shakespeares  will  supj)ly  what  shall  make 
the  bosom  of  tlie  world  heave  with  passion  and  its  eyes 
stream  with  tears.  And  so  long  as  the  mist  of  parting 
spirits  shall  rise  as  a  thick  and  constant  cloud  from  the 
planet  smoking  with  the  incessant  life  of  death,  shall 
holier  men  fill  all  lands  with  tender  words  of  comfort 
for  the  bereaved,  and  Imitations  of  Christ  be  repeated 
by  writers  who  live  nearer,  and  ever  nearer,  my  God, 
to  Thee. 

The  reputation  of  every  great  poet,  composer,  histo- 
rian, philosopher  and  man  of  science,  or  religion,  has 
been  in  part  factitious;  due  partly  to  his  genius,  and 
partly  to  opportunities  of  its  display.  The  delight  of 
mankind  in  the  surprising  advent  of  the  divine  blessing 
has  impressed  it  more  deeply  on  the  world's  memory. 
Great  comets  have  often  lit  up  the  sky ;  but  those  which 
have  come  in  ways  and  at  seasons  favorable  for  human 
observation  have  claimed  precedency  of  the  rest.  Many 
have  been  the  conjunctions  of  the  planets  Jupiter  and 
Saturn  ;  but  only  the  one  that  happened  to  coincide  with 
the  birth  of  Christ  was  named  the  Star  of  Betlilehem, 
and  will  live  in  story. 

Transcendent  genius  is  not  a  rare  production  of  any 
age ;  but  the  occasion  and  the  genius  must  fall  properly 
together  to  excite  the  hero-worshipping  spirit.  The 
founder  of  a  dynasty  is  always  accounted  god-like.  The 
great  teacher  of  a  new  science  is  greater  than  his  greater 
followers.  The  world  is  easily  blase  ;  a  charge  of  imita- 
tion is  the  death  of  reputation ;  no  matter  if  the  imitator 
be  a  nonpareil.  He  who  suggests  an  explanation  claims 
mastership  over  those  who  furnish  it.  Such  are  the 
frailties  of  fame.  We  need  not  fear  that  when  great 
occasions  arise  souls  are  not  already  born  for  them. 
Troy  is  buried  and  there  will  be  no  second  Homer. 
Manners  are  so  changed  that  were  Shakespeare  one  of 


XVI.]  DESTINY   OF   THE   EACE.  40-'^ 

US  we  sbiHiltl  not  recognize  him  by  the  di-amas  he  would 
now  he  writing.  Hegel  and  Schopenhauer  have  made 
another  Kant  impossible  and  undesu'able.  Von  Baer 
has  supplanted  Oken,  and  Agassiz,  Von  Baer.  But  as 
these  arose  at  the  call  of  human  destiny,  a  thousand 
more  shall  sleep  for  ages  until  the  trumpet  of  their  gen- 
eration sounds ;  and  so  the  literature  of  the  world  Hows 
on,  and  must  ever  flow,  like  the  INIississippi  or  the  Dan- 
ube, wliile  rain  falls,  and  grass  grows,  and  the  soul  of 
God  finds  utterance  through  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
men. 

And  the  same  question  is  asked  respecting  the  Fine 
Arts;  and  shall  be  answered  in  like  manner.  In 
waves  like  the  commotions  of  the  atmosphere,  the  crea- 
tive faculty  in  art  sweeps  across  the  ages.  Reilaissance 
succeeds  renaissance.  We  live  just  now  under  a  high 
barometer  of  art.  The  form  of  Paris,  the  color  of  Ant- 
werp, never  was  excelled  and  seldom  equalled  in  the 
palmiest  days  of  Italy  and  Greece.  The  hell  scene  of 
Polygnotus  at  Delphi,  unconsciously  imitated  by  the 
unknown  master-painter  of  Pisa,  and  again  b}''  Buona- 
rotti  in  the  chapel  of  the  Vatican,  is  surpassed  even  as  a 
tour  de  force,  to  say  nothing  of  technique,  by  the  great 
canvases  of  David  and  Kaulbach. 

The  influence  of  the  physical  sciences  upon  the  Fine 
Arts  is  most  curious  and  instructive. 

In  the  earliest  historical  age,  the  art  of  sculpture  was 
perfected  by  a  close  observation  of  objects  under  the- 
inspiration  of  family  pride  and  personal  affection.  This 
produced  the  wonderful  statues  of  the  monarchs  and 
officials  of  the  Fourth  and  Fifth  dynasties  of  Egypt., 
found  in  the  tombs  of  Memphis,  dating  from  at  least 
3,000  years  before  the  Christian  era.  The  rude  sketches 
of  wild  animals  made  on  fragments  of  tusk  and  bone  by 
palteolitiiic  men  were  inspired  hj  personal  adventures. 

The  most  ancient  scribes  of  Egypt  improved  on  these, 
when  they  adopted  the  forms  of  birds,  beasts,  fish  and 
human  implements  as  syllables  and  letters  of  the  alpha- 
bet. No  longer  solitary  woodsmen,  but  associated  deni- 
zens of  palaces  and  temples  in  tlie  midst  of  a  crowded 
and  wealthy  population,  die  native  spuit  of  the  artists 


40G  THE    INTELLECTUAL    AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

awoke  to  the  delights  of  praise,  and  strove  for  perfection 
of  detail.  A  pre-Raphaelistic  fineness  of  touch  charac- 
terizes the  carvings  and  the  frescoes  of  the  tombs.  But 
a  plethora  of  work  induced  conventionalism  in  delinea- 
tion ;  and  the  imitation  of  nature  fell  into  disuse  for  re- 
cording the  exaggerations  of  a  monarch's  successes,  and 
for  representing  the  growing  absurdities  of  a  compli- 
cated Pantheon.  Still  further  degraded  by  the  hideous 
chimera  worsliip  of  Phoenician  commerce,  fused  with  the 
symbolism  of  INIesopotamia  and  Tlu'ace,  the  art  of 
sculpture  sank  to  its  lowest  degradation.  In  India  and 
China  the  same  effects  produced  like  causes  without  a 
revival.  But  Greece,  which  could  evolve  the  lovely  and 
exalted  Pythian  Apollo  from  the  hideous  Tyrian  Mel- 
carth,  and  breed  a  Solon,  Lycurgus,  Pericles  and  Alci- 
biades,  an  Aspasia  and  a  Sappho,  a  Socrates  and  a  Plato, 
a  Democritus  and  an  Anaximander,  could  also  create  a 
Phidias,  a  Praxiteles  and  a  Polygnotus.  Once  more 
the  imitation  of  nature  became  the  canon  of  art;  and 
Nature  was  so  beautiful  in  Greece  that  Art  could 
achieve  its  masterpieces.  But  to  the  Greek,  Nature 
meant  Man ;  and  the  Florentine  boar  remains  a  curious 
anomaly  of  Greek  artistic  caprice. 

Painting  therefore  in  our  sense  of  it  could  not  flourish  ; 
and  landscape  painting^  to  a  race  of  sailors  on  the  most 
picturesque  of  seas,  and  landsmen  who  sat  on  the  stone 
benches  of  a  theatre  in  the  open  air  surrounded  by  all 
the  glories  of  land  and  water  to  listen  to  the  dramas  of 
^Eschylus  and  the  comedies  of  Aristophanes,  was  a  dis- 
carded superfluity.  The  garden  frescoes  of  Pompeii 
2)robably  represent  all  there  was  of  ancient  landscape  art. 

When  classic  art  perished  at  the  fall  of  Rome,  and  the 
rude  Christian  symbolism  of  half-heathen  Europe  was 
realized  m  stone  and  on  plaster  by  mechanics  in  the 
disguise  or  in  the  pay  of  monks,  form  and  color  were 
mere  suggestions  of  spiritual  yearnings,  and  had  no 
value  of  themselves.  When  the  Moslem  came,  and 
then  the  Turk,  and  tlie  learning  that  lingered  in  the 
East  was  exiled  to  Italy,  the  lo"<'e  of  the  beautiful  awoke 
once  more,  but  still  with  bat  half-dissipated  dreams  of 
the  night ;  and  its  morning  was  spent  in  tlio  ondeavor  to 


XVI.]  DESTINY   OF    THE   EACE.  407 

realize  in  marble  the  ileeting  visions  it  had  got  of  God 
and  the  prophets,  of  Christ  and  his  apostles,  of  Marv  and 
the  niart^T-ed  saints.  The  doors  of  the  Baptisteries  were 
cast  in  historic  panels  of  the  acts  of  Jesus ;  the  walls  of 
churches  became  a  mosaic  of  Bible  history;  or  were 
frescoed  with  the  sufferings  and  triumphs  of  the  Church's 
witnesses.  Nature  was  still  the  creation,  not  of  the  di- 
vine father,  but  of  the  Demiurge.  The  invisible  alone 
deserved  to  be  rendered  visible. 

But  when  this  sacred  task  had  been  well  performed 
the  artists  were  set  free,  and  Leonardo  and  Raphael  and 
Murillo  began  to  spiritualize  the  material  and  teach 
once  more  the  beautiful  in  flesh  and  blood.  In  the 
North,  shut  up  in  commodious  homes,  the  Dutch 
painters  began  to  paint  flowers  and  fruits;  and  their 
domestic  easel  pictures  reacted  on  the  classic  sentiment 
of  the  South.  And  so  —  and  so  —  and  so  —  we  see 
what  we  now  see. 

But  a  great  revolution  has  been  in  progress.  .  The 
development  of  criticism  in  history  has  made  men  im- 
patient of  those  legends  which  constituted  the  staple  of 
both  sculpture  and  painting.  No  second  Rubens  is  now 
possible.  Allegory  has  become  contemptible.  Protes- 
tantism protests  against  all  representations  of  the  great 
Unknown,  the  mystical  and  the  sentimentally  ascetical. 
But  Science  makes  a  still  more  imperative  and  coercive 
protest  against  all  representations  of  the  unnatural  and 
impossible.  Never  again  will  be  executed  a  great  paint- 
ing of  the  Adam  and  the  beasts,  the  Noah  and  his  del- 
uge, the  Moses  descending  from  Mt.  Sinai,  Elijah  rapt 
into  the  sky  in  a  chariot  of  fire,  Jesus  walking  on  the 
water,  or  Saint  Theresa  floating  in  the  air.  Science  per- 
mits the  beautiful,  the  grand,  even  the  cataclysmic,  in 
pictorial  art ;  for  these  reside  and  occur  in  Nature.  But 
the  modern  world,  charged  as  it  is  already  with  the  sen- 
timent of  facb^  and  the  future  informed  as  it  will  be  of 
every  possibility  oi  fact,  will  have  nothing  more  to  do 
with  winged  horses  and  dragon-slayers,  cherubim  and 
seraphim ;  nor  endure  the  least  departure  from  just  form 
and  color,  even  for  the  sake  of  the  holiest  sentiment. 

Although  the  great  schools  of  ]Munich  and  Diisseldorf 


408  THE   INTELLECTUAL   AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

were  never  more  flourishing,  nor  so  many  artists  were 
ever  painting  in  the  galleries  of  Dresden,  Berlin,  Flor-» 
ence,  Madrid  and  London,  Paris  is  now  the  acknowl- 
edged Ca])ital  of  Art.*  Here  an  intense  realism  pre- 
vails. Paint  what  you  please,  but  let  it  be  exactly  like 
what  it  is  meant  to  represent ;  whether  a  peasant  girl 
returning  from  the  sea  flats  with  a  basket  of  shrimps,  or 
LePage's  peasant  Joan  d'Arc,  under  the  apple-tree  be- 
fore her  cottage,  seeing  the  King  and  the  Madonna  in 
her  half-entrancement ;  whether  it  be  a  scene  in  a  ball- 
room or  the  horrors  of  a  massacre,  let  every  detail  of  the 
truth  be  visible.  INIodern  science  has  made  the  modern 
Parisian  atelier,  and  explains  its  dogmas  in  the  lecture- 
rooms  of  the  Ecole  Kationale  et  Speciale  des  Beaux 
Arts  of  the  Rue  Bonaparte.  But  all  its  explanations 
sum  up  in  one  word.  Nature.  Its  only  sentiment  is  that 
belief  in  the  essential  rightness  of  things  as  they  are, 
considered  a  lyriori.,  which  inspires  every  branch  of 
modern  science,  and  all  the  applications  of  science  to  all 
the  arts  of  life,  useful  and  beautiful  alike.  The  ten- 
dency shown  by  science  to  ignore  the  idea  of  sin  as  sin  is 
therefore  frightfuU}^  parodied  by  French  art,  and  a  sci- 
entific fanaticism  in  behalf  of  the  reality  and  truth  of 
the  accidents  betrays  and  de})lorably  degrades  the  true 
faith  in  the  reality  of  lawful  phenomena. 

It  is  this  feature  of  modern  art  which  maj^  —  or  may 
not  —  in  its  turn  disappear.  Surely  the  Destiny  of  Man- 
kind shall  provide  for  its  disappearance.  Surely,  as 
vu'tue  increases  in  the  land,  pictures  of  vice  will  cease 
to  be  desired,  and  so  cease  to  be  painted.  INIodern  Art, 
<lrunk  with  youtliful  life,  is  sowing  its  wild  oats. 

The  number  of  pictures  is  now  immense.  Six  thou- 
.sand  French  paintings  executed  during  the  preceding 
twelvemonth  were  exhibited  at  the  French  Salon  of 
1880.  To  distribute  these  throughout  Europe  and 
America,  to  adorn  the  walls  of  private  dwellings,  is  the 
work  of  a  few  short  years.  The  demand  for  statuary 
and  painting  in  the  United  States  increases  every  j-ear ; 

*The  reader  will  get  an  excellent  idea  of  the  facilities  it  affords, 
from  Miss  Tlioebe  Natt's  short  sketch  of  them  in  LlppincotCa  Mag- 
azine for  March,  1881. 


XVI.]  DESTINY  OF   THE  RACE.  409 

and  it  will  not  be  long  before  the  supply  will  be  afforded 
by  the  Art  Schools  of  Philadelphia,  New  York,  Cincin- 
nati, Chicago,  and  St.  Louis,  with  little  aid  from  Europe. 

Already  landscape  pictures  by  American  artists  take 
rank  with  the  best  of  the  age  ;  and  the  equestrian  stat- 
ues of  Henry  K.  Brown  and  the  frescoes  of  William 
Hunt  are  worthy  of  a  place  in  any  gallery. 

It  would  be  a  mere  act  of  philistinism  to  multiply  the 
number  of  works  of  art  annually  executed,  by  the  num- 
ber of  years  in  the  coming  centuries,  to  make  an  esti- 
mate of  the  boundless  treasures  of  coming  generations. 
But  it  gratifies  the  heart  to  predict  so  much  pleasure 
for  babes  unborn,  and  to  finish  our  sketch  of  the  phj'si- 
cal  destiny  of  man  by  crowning  it  \vith  these  garlands 
of  roses. 

But  when  we  reflect  that  the  Fine  Arts  are  no  longer 
the  exclusive  property  of  the  Church  and  the  Aristoc- 
vacj,  whether  of  title  or  of  wealth,  but  have  been  en- 
listed into  the  ordinary  occupations  of  trade  and  manu- 
factiu'es ;  and  are  made  especially  to  subserve  the  pur- 
poses of  Natural  History  as  a  branch  of  Education ;  a 
new  career  is  seen  to  open  before  them  far  more  exten- 
sive and  more  important  than  they  have  run.  Exqui- 
sitely beautiful  colored  delineations  of  animals  and  plants 
are  now  published  by  academies  and  societies  of  science. 
Photographs  of  mountain  scenery  illustrate  government 
siuweys  and  geological  reports.  Photographs  and  col- 
ored plates  of  discovered  objects  are  considered  indis- 
pensable to  good  archaeological  memoirs.  Books  of 
travel  are  now  made  salable  by  means  of  admirably 
artistic  landscape  and  genre  paintings.  Even  Encyclo- 
paedias are  now  illuminated  like  old  Missals.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  sciences  is  everywhere  apparent  in  the  trans- 
ference of  the  work  of  the  artist  from  the  capricious 
service  of  the  powerful  and  toealthy  few  to  the  constant 
and  reliable  service  of  the  millions  ;  not  so  much  with  a 
view  to  their  amusement,  as  under  stress  of  educational 
needs.  Primary  education  bids  fair  to  become  in  great 
measure  pictorial,  and  the  stimulation  of  the  young 
mind  is  intrusted  to  those  who  can  make  the  world  it 
enters  as  picturesque  as  possible. 


410  THE   INTELLECTUAL   AND   MOKAL  [LECT. 

The  Architecture  of  the  Future  will  uot  be  confined 
to  gorgeous  edifices,  but  will  more  than  rival  the  great- 
est works  of  the  most  practical  races  of  ancient  and 
modern  days.  Every  city  will  be  flooded  with  water 
like  Imperial  Rome ;  and  every  river  will  be  spanned  by 
as  many  bridges  as  the  Seine  in  Paris. 

Accumulation  is  the  work,  the  test,  the  legacy,  the 
glory  of  Time. 

Time  buries  all  the  labor  of  man,  sings  the  poet. 
Nay, —  that  is  not  Time's  doing.  Time  is  innocent. 
War,  man's  true  fiend,  throws  down  his  edifices  and 
heaps  one  ruined  city  on  another.  So,  when  wars  shall 
cease,  ruins  will  be  replaced  by  new  monuments,  more 
and  more  substantial  and  grandiose ;  and  the  spread  of 
the  old  schools  and  the  rise  of  new  ones,  shall  prevent 
the  traditionally  beautiful  from  being  forgotten ;  the 
lovely  shapes  of  past  ages  shall  be  abundantly  imitated ; 
and  a  thousand  new  combinati(jns  and  fresh  lines  be 
introduced.  As  Peace  and  Plenty  have  restored  all  the 
cathedrals  and  some  of  the  great  castles  of  France,  and 
protected  those  of  England  from  decay ;  as  the  Dom  at 
Cologne  after  waiting  for  centuries  has  been  just  com- 
pleted out  of  the  contributions  of  all  Germany ;  and 
Sanctus  Paulus  extra  Muros  rebuilt  with  unrivalled 
splendor  by  a  living  Pope ;  and  St.  Patrick's  cathedral 
rises  in  New  York  in  the  very  form  which  it  is  the  fash- 
ion to  consider  extinct ;  so,  as  peace  and  plenty  spread 
to  Greece  and  Syria  and  Egypt, —  to  Bagdad  and  Can- 
dahar  and  the  sites  of  ancient  Bactrian  splendor, —  the 
styles  of  all  ages  Avill  revive  from  their  graves.  Ruined 
monuments  which  are  now  but  the  study  of  the  anti- 
quary, will  inspire  a  host  of  native  arcliitects  in  every 
land  with  patriotic  zeal.  The  past  will  live  again  in  its 
very  dress.  The  quarries  of  Syene  and  Baalbec  will  be 
reopened.  The  obelisques  will  be  replaced,  the  Col- 
umns of  the  Sun  re-erected  and  the  tower  of  Babel  re- 
built. But  near  them  will  also  rise  Oriental  railroad 
stations  and  houses  of  parliament,  grand  opera  houses, 
museums,  and  Walhallas,  of  styles  produced  by  the  in- 
termarriage of  the  genii  of  the  East  and  West. 

How  large  a  role  religion  will  play  in  the  Architecture 


X^^.]  DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.  411 

of  the  future  may  be  guessed  from  tlie  knowledge  we 
have  of  the  intimacy  existing  between  the  sensuous 
imagination  and  the  sentiment  of  providence.  Every 
kind  of  religious  worship  has  cultivated  a  grandiose 
architecture  of  its  own.  If  men  must  always  be  relig- 
ious and  affect  associated  worship,  directed  by  a  priestly 
class,  then,  the  larger  the  Ecclesia,  the  larger  the  House 
of  God ;  the  more  devout  the  worshippers,  the  more 
magnificent  the  ritual ;  the  greater  the  accumulations  of 
wealth,  the  more  lavish  the  expenditure ;  but  the  style 
will  vary  with  race  and  climate  as  before. 

The  possible  Education  of  the  whole  human  race  is 
evidently  not  a  question  of  kind  but  of  degree.  The 
widening  of  favorable  circumstances  ought  always  to 
multiply  the  number  of  the  instructed,  whether  the 
greater  multitude  pursue  a  higher  curriculum  or  not. 
It  is  easy  enough  to  prove  that  a  very  small  percentage 
of  any  nation  or  race  can  ever  become  excei'tionally 
learned ;  and  that  the  millions  will  in  all  future  ages  be 
too  busy  and  too  poor  to  gain  more  than  a  primary  edu- 
cation. If  the  race  of  man  be  left  to  inhabit  the  earth 
tens  of  thousands  of  years,  as  is  most  likely,  a  university 
course  must  always  be  a  privilege,  a  prize,  a  good  fort- 
une, and  a  special  blessing.  This  will  even  become 
more  and  not  less  the  case  through  an  increase  of  gen- 
eral peace,  plenty  and  prosperity ;  for  with  these  go 
hand  in  hand  ease  of  marriage  and  a  swelling  tide  of 
births ;  consequently  a  denser  population ;  consequently 
a  severer  struggle  for  life,  a  more  imperative  confine- 
ment to  place  and  occupation,  lower  wages,  an  increase 
in  the  number  of  hours  of  work,  and  the  shortening  of 
the  term  of  years  of  schooling  for  childi'en.  The  dense 
ignorance  of  the  English  population  has  been  produced 
in  this  way  by  the  exceptional  enhancement  of  employ- 
ment for  men,  women  and  children  alike ;  while  the 
extraordinary  general  intelligence  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  tells  the  same  tale.  For,  land  being  un- 
bounded, and  food  superfluously  abundant,  no  crowding 
has  yet  taken  place ;  life  is  easy ;  women  are  left  to  breed 
and  nurse  children ;  and  children  are  not  called  upon  to 


412  THE   INTELLECTUAL  AND   MORAL  [lECT. 

help  support  the  family  until  they  have  nearly  or  quite 
leached  their  majority.  Two  hundred  years;  hence  the 
great  multitude  of  Americans  will  be  no  better  educated 
than  the  multitudes  of  Germans  in  Germany  are  to-day. 

And  this  must  needs  happen  in  spite  of  the  advance 
of  science,  in  spite  of  the  pulpit  and  the  press,  in  spite 
of  Educational  Bureaus,  Boards  and  Societies,  and  quite 
apart  from  the  also  inevitable  -pro  rata  increment  of 
private  and  common  schools,  normal  schools,  colleges 
and  universities. 

The  signs  of  the  working  of  Nature's  law  to  this  effect 
are  already  patent,  in  a  reaction  against  the  forcing  proc- 
ess to  which  American  youth  of  both  sexes  are  now 
subjected ;  and  in  the  healthier  tone  of  public  sentiment 
respecting  the  disastrous  consequences  of  over-educating 
the  children  of  hard-working  parents,  who  must  be  hard 
workers  themselves,  or  become  burdensome  to  the  Com- 
monwealth. Already  "  a  higher  education  "  is  becom- 
ing a  privilege  and  prize  out  of  the  reach  of  the  majority 
of  honest  people. 

Is  this  pessimist  doctrine  ?  By  no  means.  It  simply 
teaches  that  the  bulk  of  the  human  race  must  work  all 
their  lives ;  and  consequently  cannot  learn  in  childhood 
anything  more  than  to  read,  write  and  cipher ;  nor  in 
adult  life  things  unconnected  with  their  daily  employ- 
ments. This  is  the  general  destiny  of  mankind  where- 
ever  it  increases  and  multiplies  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
And  when  the  whole  surface  of  the  globe  is  filled  with 
a  laborious,  honest,  peace-loving,  orderly,  moral  and 
religious  multitude  this  destiny  will  find  its  grandest 
exhibition. 

In  nothing  so  well  as  in  education  does  human  des- 
tiny proclaim  its  mission  of  sufficient  good  for  all,  and 
no  more.  In  nothing  is  "  the  Possible "  so  evidently 
limited  for  each  as  to  quality,  and  so  evidently  unlimited 
for  all  as  to  quantity.  No  human  being  will  ever  suc- 
ceed in  becoming  more  learned  or  wiser  than  certain 
men  and  women  have  already  been,  or  than  not  a  few 
individuals  now  living  arc.  And  the  same  is  true  of 
goodness ;  of  genius ;  of  force  of  character.  The  acme 
of  quality  was  long  ago  reached  in  the  destiny  of  iudi- 


XVI.]  DESTINY   OF   THE  RACE.  413 

viduals,  and  will  be  reached  in  rarmy  more  in  all  coming 
ages. 

But  the  bright  destin}-  of  the  race  is  this :  —  the  num- 
ber of  the  sufficiently  good,  wise,  learned,  skilful,  ener- 
getic, honest,  thrifty,  temperate  and  chaste  will  increase 
—  ever  increase  —  perhaps  at  times  more  rapidly  in- 
crease, under  the  influence  of  proper  instruction  be- 
stowed on  all  at  an  early  age ;  until  the  last  traces  of 
the  brutish  populations  which  still  infest  —  rather  than 
inhabit  —  all  countries  under  the  sun  shall  have  dis- 
appeared ;  until  by  successive  generations  of  suffieientli/ 
taught  children  a  disposition  for  useful  knowledge  shall 
become  generally  hereditary  and  unbiassed  traditions  of 
the  true  and  beautiful  shall  direct  the  conduct  of  every 
family  and  every  state. 

The  quantity  of  virtue  and  the  quantity  of  intelli- 
gence will  then  be  iniinitely  great ;  while  the  quality  of 
neither  mercy,  justice  nor  truth,  in  any  individual,  will 
be  any  more  illustrious  than  it  is  now. 

To  bring  this  about  we  recognize  three  necessities  :  — 
1.  The  compulsory  education  of  all  children  without  ex- 
ception ;  2.  The  education  of  woman  on  a  full  equality 
with  man  ;  and  3.  The  co-education  of  the  sexes. 

The  compulsory  education  of  all  children  is  now  so 
soundly  accepted  as  to  be  enacted  by  the  most  enlight- 
ened governments.  The  only  objections  to  it  which  de- 
serve a  patient  hearing  are  drawn :  —  1.  From  its  sup- 
posed interference  with  the  right  of  parents  to  decide 
the  fate  of  their  offspring;  2.  From  its  supposed  exas- 
perating effect  upon  the  lowest  classes  of  society ;  and 
3.  From  its  dreaded  invasion  of  the  domain  of  this  or 
that  established  church  or  religious  sect. 

The  first  objection  represents  a  sentiment  proper  to 
past  ages,  when  the  woman  was  accounted  pniperty,  as 
well  as  her  children,  by  the  husband  and  father. 

The  second  objection  is  urged  against  compuhion  as  less 
effectual  ih<m. persuasion^  and  bearing  sour  fruit.  But  it 
must  be  acknowledged  by  all  who  study  the  lower  forms 
of  social  life,  that,  as  justice  nuist  be  mixed  with  mercy 
and  sternness  with  sympathy,  so  the  worst  evils  can  only 
be  rooted  out  vi  et  armis,  and  cliildren  who  are  compelled 


414  THE  INTELLECTUAL  AND  MORAL  [LECT. 

by  vicious  parents  to  learn  how  to  ruin  thcmseh'es  and 
infect  society  should  be  compelled  by  society  to  reform 
themselves  and  learn  wisdom  in  spite  of  their  dreadful 
surroundings.  Compulsory  Education  is  compulsion, 
not  for  the  helpless  child,  but  for  the  criminal  parent. 
Society  knows  that  it  can  reclaim  and  save  the  child  by 
a  strong  hand  and  an  outstretched  arm  even  when  the 
parent  of  the  child  is  unreclaimable  and  destined  to 
destruction. 

The  third  objection  is  a  despairing  cry  from  Supersti- 
tion, seeing  in  the  rising  sun  only  a  warning  to  depart 
back  to  the  hell  it  came  from. 

All  living  things  have  been  endowed  with  instincts 
how  to  live. 

Human  society  has  a  divine  inspiration  how  to  live  in 
every  age  and  stage  of  its  existence.  The  polity  of  a 
savage  tribe  is  as  perfectly  well  ordered  for  its  circum- 
stances as  that  of  the  most  enlightened  civilized  govern- 
ment for  its  circumstayices.  It  is  idle  to  object  to  the 
compulsory  instruction  of  the  children  of  a  compact 
connnunity  in  that  kind  of  knowledge  which  the  major- 
ity of  its  healthy  members  feel  to  be  most  needful  for 
the  common  weal.  The  brain  demands  food  for  itself, 
for  the  heart,  the  lungs,  the  liver,  the  kidnej's,  the 
spleen,  the  muscles  and  the  nerves,  even  where  the 
stomach  rebels.  Priests  who  fight  against  a  common 
school  system  are  precisely  the  diseased  entrails  of  the 
body  politic. 

The  education  of  the  female  sex  to  an  equal  degree 
with  that  of  the  male  sex  is  distinctly  predicted  by  the 
current  liistory  of  the  United  States  and  England.  In 
other  countries  woman  is  still  regarded  as  a  breeder, 
cook  and  nurse,  for  man's  benefit.  The  birth  of  girls  is 
a  necessity  for  securing  the  continuance  of  the  male 
population  of  the  world.  The  education  of  woman  is 
discouraged  in  view  of  her  probable  interference  with 
the  political  monopoly  enjoyed  by  man,  and  of  her  cer- 
tain competition  M'ith  man  in  the  crafts  and  trades. 
The  more  skilful  the  art,  the  more  jealous  the  artisan 
and  artist.  Physicians  abhor  female  medical  students. 
Painters  exclude  women  from  their  studios.     Preachers 


XVI.]  DESTHSTY  OF   THE    RACE.  415 

announce  the  word  of  the  Lord  that  women  must  be 
silent  in  the  churches.  Critics  scoff  at  the  ability  of 
woman  to  write  an  epic  or  compose  an  opera.  Men  of 
science  patronize  female  observers,  but  expect  from  them 
no  discoveries  of  natural  law.  Politicians  bar  against 
the  sex  of  the  house  every  exit  to  the  street  and  every 
entrance  to  the  forum,  on  the  pretence  that  the  street 
and  the  forum  will  convert  them  into  men ;  but  in  real- 
ity for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  sex  of  the  street  inde- 
pendent of  the  only  influence  which  can  cleanse  the 
street  and  ennoble  the  forum. 

As  all  laws  are  made  by  men  alone,  without  consulta- 
tion with  women ;  as  all  lawmakers  are  elected  b}"  men 
alone,  women  being  excluded  from  the  polls;  as  all 
judges,  barristers,  jurymen,  sheriffs,  policemen,  jailers, 
all  boards  of  control,  all  school  directors,  in  a  word  all 
parts  of  the  machinery  of  the  government  of  male  and 
female  society  are  composed  of  men  alone — the  female 
element  being  wholly  and  absolutely  excluded — liberty, 
independence,  self-government,  democracy,  civilization, 
are  terms  which  have  only  an  accidental  meaning  for  one- 
half  the  human  race,  and  mark  the  progress  of  only  that 
half  in  the  destiny  of  the  race.  The  Destiny  of  INIan 
can  fully  work  itself  out  only  after  the  abolition  of  the 
factitious  political  distinction  which  is  now  everywhere 
made  between  the  two  sexes ;  when  women  shall  govern 
men  as  thoroughly  and  regularly  as  men  now  govern 
women;  when  the  male  and  female  mind  and  con- 
science combined  shall  regulate  male  and  female  society 
regarded  as  a  unit. 

This  is  the  newest  sentiment  of  our  day,  and  will 
become  the  dominant  sentiment  of  future  ages. 

This  sentiment  is  born  of  the  education  of  woman, 
and  will  prevail  in  proportion  as  the  sex  is  educated. 
The  intellectual  genius  of  woman,  aborted  by  the  skil- 
ful management  of  the  male  sex  liitherto,  asserts  its 
rights,  and  recuperates  its  power,  by  tearing  the  mask 
from  the  face  of  injustice,  and  by  disrobing  society  so  as 
to  reveal  its  hideous  sores ;  claiming  that  woman  alone 
can  heal  these  sores;  and  in  order  to  do  this  must  be 
granted  her  just  share  of  public  power. 


416  THE   INTELLECTUAL  AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

The  battle  which  women  are  winning  is  the  first  of  a 
fine  campaign ;  the  first,  against  their  fathers,  husbands, 
brothers,  and  sons;  the  rest,  against  adulterers  and 
seducers,  dishonest  guardians  and  trustees,  pilfering 
ollice-holders,  slanderous  newspaper  editors  and  obscene 
book  writers,  lazy  officials,  brutal  jailers  and  madhouse 
keepers,  uneducated  luirses,  drunken,  stujDid  school  direc- 
tors, licentious  theatres,  the  gambling  hells,  and  that 
crowning  woe  of  the  city  world,  innumerable  rows  of 
grog-shops,  sucking  in  by  day  and  night  the  precious 
heritage  of  women,  spoiling  all  that  would  be  lovely  in 
life,  and  breeding  all  that  is  deadly  for  future  genera- 
tions. 

All  these  evils  are  represented  by  the  male  sex  —  by 
individual  men,  in  close  consultation  among  themselves, 
relieved  of  the  restraints  of  the  presence  of  good  women, 
unchecked  by  their  remonstrances,  unenlightened  by 
their  information.  The  legal  concurrence  of  one  well- 
educated,  right-minded  woman  would  in  most  instances 
suffice  to  reorganize  on  a  noble  basis  the  ignoble  con- 
duct of  legislature,  court,  and  council  chamber.  How 
perfect  would  be  the  reform  were  an  equal  number  of 
men  and  women  to  sit  at  every  public  board  of  manage- 
ment and  control ! 

But  the  women  selected  for  this  task  must  be  well 
educated;  and  to  educate  such  individual  women,  the 
whole  female  sex  must  be  well  educated.  But  a  good 
system  of  female  education  will  inevitably  react  to 
improve  the  education  of  the  male  sex.  And  to  perfect 
the  operation  the  two  sexes  must  be  educated  together. 
To  do  this  rightly  boards  of  school  directors  must  be 
composed  of  both  sexes.  Are  not  mothers  as  much  the 
owners  of  children  as  fathers  are?  And  what  do  men 
know  of  the  proper  mode,  means  and  degree  of  the  edu- 
cation of  girls  ?     Yet  all  school  directors  are  males. 

The  induction  of  women  into  the  rights  and  powers 
of  school  direction  is  the  hinge  on  which  turns  the 
opening  door  of  the  coming  civilization  of  the  human 
race.  This  is  all  that  is  needed  to  secure  the  selection 
of  fit  teachers  for  children.  From  these  will  come  the 
advanced  teachers  of  the  future.     The  general  improve- 


XVI.]  DESTINY   OF   THE   KACE.  417 

ment  of  primary  education  will  result  in  an  increased 
number  of  women  capable  of  higher  instruction.  Al- 
read}^  the  whole  field  of  human  learning  is  open  to  culti- 
vation of  woman  at  Oberlin  (women  have  been  admit- 
ted at  Oberlin  since  its  founding  in  1835),  Ann  Arbor, 
at  Cornell,  at  Swarthmore,  at  Northampton,  at  Pough- 
keepsie.  Even  the  venerable  seats  of  learning  at  Boston 
and  Philadelphia  have  been  compelled  to  grant  quasi 
university  courses  to  female  students.  And  Cambridge, 
old  Cambridge  in  England,  grants  diplomas  on  the  sly 
to  those  of  the  disfrancliised  sex  who  demand  them  vig- 
orously. In  time  the  superb  creatures  who  taught 
science  in  the  still  older  universities  of  Italy  will  have 
a  host  of  equal  successors  lecturing  and  demonstrating 
from  the  professors'  chairs  of  the  future.  Even  now 
female  doctors  of  medicine,  philosophy,  chemistr}'',  letters 
and  arts  are  founding  schools  of  their  own  and  lajdng 
the  basis  for  a  general  education  of  their  own  sex  equal 
in  all  respects  to  the  general  education  of  the  other  sex, 
hitherto  its  master,  henceforth  only  its  rival.* 

Slow  and  sure  is  the  word  of  the  Lord.  Step  by  step 
the  destiny  advances.  By  insensible  gradations  the 
dawn  melts  into  daylight.  Line  upon  line  and  precept 
upon  precept,  here  a  little  and  there  a  little,  the  race 
of  mankind  becomes  aware  of  its  fate.  One  nation 
after  another  opens  its  sleepy  eyes  and  slowly  gets  upon 
its  feet  and  goes  to  work.  Minister  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion, Mr.  Ferr}^,  has  just  issued  orders  to  the  school-mas- 
ters of  40,000  parishes  in  France  to  meet  in  their  2,000 

*  See  six  reasons  why  the  English  University  of  Cambridge 
"  should  be  one  of  the  leading  centres  of  female  education,"  in  a 
paper  issued  fi'om  Cambridge  in  view  of  the  discussion  Feb.  24, 
1881,^  in  Nature  of  that  date,  page  394.  Oxford,  too,  is  going  in 
the  same  direction  as  Cambridge,  very  fast.  The  first  woman  stu- 
dent has  been  admitted  to  the  Sorbonne  at  Paris,  and  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  Berlin :  and  there  are  a  great  number  of  women  students 
at  a  university  in  St.  Petersburg.  The  first  woman  has  just  been 
graduated  as  Dottressa  in  the  Papal  College  at  Rome.  In  the 
United  States  all  the  new  State  Universities,  founded  on  the  great 
Government  land  grant,  admit  women,  I  think :  and  in  Wisconsin, 
iMinnesota,  Kansas,  Iowa,  Indiana.  California,  etc.,  are  rapidly  be- 
coming great  centres  of  learning.  Indeed  it  would  be  hardly  pos- 
sible now  to  establish  de  novo  a  great  university  for  the  education 
of  men  alone. 


418  THE   INTELLECTUAL   AND   MORAL  [LEOT. 

district  towns  and  send  up  delegates  to  a  School  Con- 
vention at  Paris.  Two  thousand  select  school-masters 
of  the  Republic  will  there  discuss  the  best  measures  for 
perfecting  the  general  education  of  the  nation.  Switzer- 
land is  converting  itself  into  a  Central  University  for 
Europe.  Germany  has  carried  the  primary  education  of 
boys  and  girls  to  the  highest  pitch,  but  still  hesitates  to 
permit  girls  to  advance  be^'^ond  the  rudiments.  In  the 
course  of  another  century  or  two  the  popular  learning  of 
the  West  will  invade  the  Orient ;  and  the  already  long 
since  well  established  school  system  of  China  will  be 
applied  to  the  rapid  spread  of  right  knowledge  tlirough- 
out  the  most  populous  region  of  the  globe. 

As  the  result  is  already  predetermined  and  inevitable, 
there  is  no  need  of  passion  in  advocating  the  means  for 
producing  it.  Fanaticism  is  out  of  place.  The  women 
of  America  are  not  called  upon  to  abuse  the  men  for 
doing  only  half  the  work.  Their  own  duty  lies  before 
them, — to  do  the  other  half. 

The  Co-education  of  the  sexes  is  the  tliird  aspect  of 
the  subject.  It  needs  no  argument.  It  is  certain  to 
prevail.  It  has  been  tried  and  been  successful.  The 
hostility  of  the  male  sex  to  it  arises  from  either  an  im- 
pure and  an  ignoble  timidity ;  from  a  superficial  knowl- 
edge of  natural  laws;  from  deep-rooted  prejudices  in- 
herited from  unenlightened  ancestors  fostered  by  the 
half-enlightened  conversation  of  society  ;  or,  from  lack  of 
faith  in  the  native  worth  of  woman's  practical  character; 
and  at  the  same  time  from  an  obscure  instinctive  pre- 
monition which  inconsistently  enough  affirms  to  them 
that  the  female  sex,  superior  to  the  male  in  everytliing 
but  physical  strength  and  mental  energy,  is  destined  to 
resume  its  prehistoric  r81e  of  government,  and  to  per- 
form most  of  the  legislative  functions  of  society,  leaving 
the  executive  in  the  stronger  hands  of  men. 

Safely  leaving  the  common-sense  of  whole  populations 
to  take  care  of  popular  education  on  the  plain,  and  turn- 
ing to  contemplate  the  peaks  of  human  learning  climbed 
by  the  few,  an  inspiring  spectacle  awaits  us.  Thou- 
sands and  ten  thousands  of  investigators  occupy  the 
scene.     Although  a  minute  proportion  of  the  myriads 


XVI.]  DESTLNY   OF   THE  KACE.  419 

that  populate  the  earth,  tliis  scattered  multitude  —  scat- 
tered, but  in  complete  communication  with  each  other  — 
fulfil  all  the  laws  of  discovery  and  distribute  the  pre- 
cious fi:uits  of  research  to  feed  the  hunger  of  the  uni- 
versal mind.  No  more  pedantry  —  no  more  scholasti- 
cism—  no  more  crude  conjectures  —  no  more  supersti- 
tions. All,  knowledge ;  won  by  investigation,  and  tested 
by  experiment.  Men  of  science,  the  futui-e  order  of 
nobility ;  teachers  of  facts  and  laws  and  uses  and  meth- 
ods, the  acknowledged  leaders  and  rulers  of  society ; 
incipient  intellect,  the  object  of  the  most  sedulous  fos- 
tering care ;  charlatans,  drowned  in  the  sea  of  real 
learning  on  which  they  spread  their  sails ;  cant,  replaced 
by  simple  lucid  demonstration ;  truths,  painted  in  the 
perspective  of  great  and  small,  important  and  unimpor- 
tant, each  subordinate  to  the  natural  hierarchy  of  phe- 
nomena, and  the  good  and  beautiful  made  always  and 
in  all  cases  to  rank  the  commonplace ;  schools,  colleges, 
universities,  purged  of  all  obstructive  or  repressive  rou- 
tine ;  the  graduation  of  capacities,  strict  yet  generous ; 
the  forward  advancement  of  the  best  endowed,  no  longer 
hindered  by  an  inert  mass  of  stupidity  favored  by  fort- 
une ;  endowments,  plentiful  and  adequate  and  wisely 
administered,  not  by  the  rules  of  trade,  nor  for  privileged 
classes,  but  by  men  expert  in  education,  and  for  those 
whose  natural  abilities  it  will  pay  the  world  best  to 
favor. 

Dead  men's  legacies  have  crushed  the  Universities. 
A  city  should  oiun  its  University,  not  merely  have  it ;  as 
a  curiosity  for  visitors  to  look  at ;  or  a  convenient  wall  to 
which  a  private  citizen  may  now  and  then  affix  his  ceno- 
taph. The  day  comes  when  the  city  will  no  more  leave 
the  maintenance  of  its  University  to  private  chance  or 
caprice,  or  to  the  accidents  of  trade,  than  its  mayor's 
office,  its  council  chamber,  its  court  house,  its  alms- 
house, its  hospital,  or  its  prison.  To  drain  the  city  of 
ignorance  is  as  obligatory  a  duty  upon  all  as  to  drain  it 
of  filth.  To  furnish  the  city  with  an  abundance  of  the 
best  science  is  as  imperative  a  part  of  good  government 
as  to  provide  a  plenty  of  pure  water,  or  gas-light.  The 
common  and  high  schools  are  supported  by  general  tax- 


420  THE   INTELLECTUAL   AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

ation  ;  the  University,  the  culmination  of  the  educational 
system  is  still  left  to  chance. 

In  England  the  perversion  of  ancient  wealth  at 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  to  the  delectation  of  aristo- 
cratic pride  and  indolence  has  become  a  scandal  and 
a  nuisance.  What  those  celebrated  beds  of  roses  could 
be  made  to  produce  —  and  will  surely  soon  be  made 
to  produce  —  is  thus  stated  by  Max  Miiller  in  his  recent 
address  in  the  University  College,  London :  — 

To  compare  the  work  that  Oxford  or  Cambridge  could  do  and 
ought  to  do,  with  that  of  any  other  university,  whether  British  or 
Continental,  is  simply  absurd.  Oxford,  with  its  excellent  material, 
the  well-fed  and  well-bred  youth  of  these  islands ;  Oxford  with 
its  many  students  who  have  not  to  work  for  their  bread ;  Oxford, 
with  its  rich  colleges  and  libraries  and  fellowships,  can  do  for  the 
advancement  of  learning  fifty  times  over  what  (Jiessen  or  even 
Leipsic  can  do.  Oxford  and  Cambridge  could  beggar  the  whole 
world  and  make  the  old  universities  the  home  of  all  English  genius, 
all  English  learning,  all  English  art,  all  English  virtue. 

The  plan  he  proposes  is  a  simple  one.  Prize  fellow- 
ships are  in  future  to  be  tenable  for  five  or  seven  years 
only.  He  proposes  that,  if  a  Fellow  has  then  developed  a 
taste  for  scientific  work  and  wishes  to  continue  it,  he 
shall  have  a  second  fellowship  with  duties  attached,  like 
those  of  the  Extraordinary  Professors  in  Germany.  Let 
the  few  who  hold  out  another  five  years  receive  a  tliird 
fellowship  and  become  Ordinary  Professors  for  life,  with 
an  income  from  the  three  fellowships  of  X  1,000  per 
annum. 

But  if  the  ancient  endowments  of  the  two  English 
universities  are  to  be  thus  utilized  for  future  work,  the 
same  improved  public  sentiment  which  works  the  change 
in  them  will  gradually  effect  a  more  radical  enhancement 
of  the  University  system,  in  other  countries,  so  soon  as  a 
few  democratic  revolutions  shall  have  overthrown  the 
existent  governments  fortified  by  standing  armies,  and 
the  millions  now  taxed  for  war  shall  be  competent  to 
tax  themselves  for  knowledge.  The  destiny  of  nations 
is  not  merely  to  beat  swords  and  spears  into  ploughs 
and  prunihg-hooks,  but  to  eject  the  soldiery  from  forts 
and  iill   their  places  with   astronomers   and  meteorolo- 


XVI.]  DESTDTZ   OF   THE  RACE.  421 

gists;  to  convert  barracks  into  universities;  and  to 
supply  men  of  science  with  an  artiLlery  of  research  as 
efficient  and  not  half  so  costly  as  the  equipment  lav- 
ished upon  troops. 

The  Philanthropy  of  the  future:  what  ma}^  we  expect 
it  to  be  ?  The  same  in  kind,  degree  and  method  as  it 
has  been  in  the  past?  Or,  something  nobler,  greater, 
wiser? 

Surely  the  growth  of  general  intelligence  must  affect 
philanthropic  conduct.  The  better  knowledge  of  human 
distress  will  widen  and  deepen  the  sentiment  of  pity ; 
and  the  acuter  and  more  thorough  investigation  of  its 
causes  will  modify  the  practise  of  its  cure. 

The  first  need  of  civilized  man  is  a  good  home. 

Tenement  houses  for  the  poor  represent  the  two  oppo- 
site poles  —  of  squalid  misery  and  of  cheap  comfort. 

Left  to  the  selfishness  of  impious  wealth  the  arrange- 
ments of  life  for  the  outcast  classes  are  the  last  desper- 
ate lairs  of  wild  beasts  in  districts  from  which  the 
pressure  of  surrounding  superior  species  threatens  exter- 
mination. Committed  to  the  wise  benevolence  of  pious 
wealth  the  arrangements  of  life  for  the  classes  which  are 
always  on  the  verge  of  becoming  outcast  are  sweet, 
wholesome,  hopeful  and  thrift-inspiring. 

Where,  as  in  Philadelphia,  a  whole  population  can  by 
a  little  foresight  and  self-government  easily  save  and 
build  their  own  dwellings,  at  an  average  cost  of  from 
$1,000  to  $1,500,  over  a  wide  space,  all  goes  well. 
Where,  as  in  London,  millions  are  cramped  and  crushed 
into  a  sweltering  mass,  a  divine  philanthropy  is  called 
for,  and  becomes  illustrious  thi-ough  such  success  as  that 
which  has  followed  the  application  of  George  Peabody's 
bequest  of  82,500,000.  In  17  years  eleven  blocks  of 
houses  for  the  poor  have  been  erected  in  various  quar- 
ters of  the  great  metropolis,  at  a  cost  of  $2,750,000; 
constituting  2,355  separate  dwellings,  with  5,170  living 
rooms  (besides  bath-rooms,  laundries  and  wash-houses 
free  in  common),  inhabited  by  9,899  persons,  on  an 
average  rent  of  $1.00  per  week  per  dwelling,  and  $0.50 
per  week  per  room,  mth  a  death  rate  of  19.71  per  1,000 


422  THE   DTTELLECTUAL  AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

(2.49  less  than  the  death  rate  of  the  city  as  a  whole).  In 
1881  other  blocks  will  be  built  adding  to  this  saved 
population  3,500  persons  more. 

The  tendency  of  a  part  of  mankind  to  crowd  into 
cities  is  as  natural  as  the  occlusion  of  hydrogen  in  the 
pores  of  a  mass  of  iron.  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  cities  grow  by  this  process  ;  their  growth  is  organic 
like  that  of  a  peat  bog.  At  first  the}''  are  planted  from 
without ;  but  once  established,  they  enlarge  themselves 
from  their  own  seed-vessels.  This  is  proven  by  the 
history  of  a  normal  city  like  Philadelpliia,  in  which  ever}'- 
married  couple  strives  to  live  in  a  separate  house.  By 
comparing  the  annual  number  of  native-born  j^outh  of 
both  sexes  Avho  come  of  age,  and  may  be  supposed  to 
marry, —  and  the  annual  number  of  houses  built, —  the 
two  numbers  will  be  seen  to  agree.  It  follows,  then, 
that  the  number  of  new  comers  to  settle  in  the  city  is 
about  balanced  by  the  number  of  native-born  citizens 
who  migrate  from  it. 

Every  great  manufacturing  city  obeys  this  law  of 
normal  organic  growth,  and  may  be  safely  left  to  its 
normal  arrangements  for  cleansing  itself  of  its  own 
offal.  But  great  commercial  ports  like  New  York,  Liv- 
erpool, London,  Marseilles,  Alexandria,  Calcutta,  Can- 
ton, have  a  double  growth.  Besides  the  native  growth, 
there  is  an  afflux.  And  besides  the  immigration,  which 
is  mostly  not  harmful  but  useful,  there  is  a  floating 
population  of  sailors  and  traders  and  criminals.  These 
have  to  be  regulated  specifically. 

Tramps  and  professional  beggars  and  criminals  are  the 
outgrowth  of  times  of  special  social  disturbance,  like 
the  American  civil  war  of  1861  or  the  Bulgarian  rev- 
olution ;  or,  to  cite  the  most  notable  of  all  examples, 
like  the  Tai-piug  rebellion  in  the  Chinese  Empire, 
wliich  lasted  20  years,  and  in  its  sixteenth  year  de- 
stroyed 10,000,000  lives  in  one  province  alone.  But 
they  are  chronically  produced  by  any  standing  malad- 
justment of  the  apparatus  of  social  life ;  such  as  a  long 
continued  disproportion  between  supply  and  demand ; 
or  a  succession  of  bad  crops ;  or  the  development  of 
gold,  diamond  and  oil  regions ;  or  a  permanent  occupa- 


XVI.]  DESTINY    OF   THE    RACE.  423 

tion  of  an  empire  by  incompetent  foreign  rulers,  like 
the  Turks. 

The  hope  of  the  future  is,  that  such  disturbances, 
whether  sporadic,  or  continuous,  will  become  rarer,  and 
tlii'ough  the  spread  of  intelligence  and  the  enforcement 
of  just  laws  by  all  and  for  all,  cease  t(j  afflict  humanity. 
When  the  Turk,  the  fanatic  and  the  usurer  fail,  man- 
kind will  find  no  excuse  for  rebellion,  civil  war  and 
theft.  But  a  shrewd  and  active  pliilanthri^py  must 
substitute  itself  for  the  mischief-breeding  domination  of 
the  honest  many  by  the  dishonest  few. 

Philanthropy  should  be  the  science  of  Hygiene  re- 
specting Roguery  in  society.  Hitherto  it  has  neither 
been  a  science,  nor  has  it  had  roguery  in  view.  On  the 
contrary,  it  has  been  a  mere  sentiment  of  fanaticism, 
selfish  in  its  own  nature,  and  wholly  unaware  of  what 
its  own  name  meant.  One  of  the  worst  misinterpreta- 
tions of  Christianity  has  been  the  popular  clerical  doc- 
trine of  the  virtue  of  almsgiving  i^er  se,  and  of  its  heav- 
enly rcAvard  as  such.  Men  will  learn  in  couise  of  time 
that  Benevolence  becomes  Malevolence  through  unen- 
quiring  almsgiving ;  and  if  God  in  assigning  his  rewards 
regards  the  consequences  of  conduct,  the  paying  teller's 
desk  at  which  such  Benevolence  must  present  its 
warrants  is  certainly  not  in  Heaven. 

The  cure  for  beggary  is  not  compulsory  labor ;  but 
a  humane  and  sympathetic  instruction  and  assistance ; 
having  for  its  object,  first,  a  revival  of  the  beggar's  self- 
respect,  and  secondly,  a  stimulation  of  his  pride  in  self- 
support.  The  beggar  must  have  a  new  set  of  ideas  and 
feelings  forced  into  him  ;  and  then,  a  chance  given  him 
to  realize  the  ideas,  and  gratify  the  feelings.  Alms- 
giving is  as  bad  a  medicine  for  unthrift,  as  is  whiskey 
for  low  spirits ;  and  works  woe  in  the  same  fashion. 

The  old  time  recipe  to  cure  a  cat  is  to  make  disgust 
rectify  its  intellect.  So  the  only  eft'ectual  cure  for 
sordid  unthrift  and  that  jjretended  starvation  which 
appeals  for  eleemosynary  relief,  is  the  application  of 
doses  of  real  and  actual  starvation  ;  administered  not  at 
all  as  a  punishment ;  nor,  in  the  spirit  of  a  family  physi- 
cian dealing  with  a  case  of  gout  or  gluttony;  but,  on 


424  THE   INTELLECTUAL   AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

the  principle  of  the  Socratic  method  of  reasoning  with 
a  sluggish  mind  or  indifferent  scholar.  When  beggars 
really  come  to  starve,  which,  unfortunately,  so-called 
Christian  Benevolence  takes  good  care  to  prevent,  they 
not  oiLi\j  begin  to  listen  to  certain  questions  which 
Nature  has  been  asking  them  in  vain,  but  they  begin 
also  to  feel  the  force  and  bearing  of  said  questions ; 
and  then  — and  not  till  then  —  they  cast  about  to  find  the 
answers. 

It  is  the  business  of  Philanthropy  to  be  on  hand  to 
help  them  comprehend  the  questions  and  suggest  the 
answers. 

Organized  Charity  —  this  is  the  discovery  of  our  age  ; 
this  is  the  last  anal}' sis  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus ;  this  is 
the  arena  in  which  future  saints  and  sages  may  compete 
together  until  the  saints  become  sages  and  the  sages 
saints;  this  is  the  apparatus  by  which  alone  Human 
Society  can  relieve  itself  of  the  miseries  of  poverty. 
"The  poor  ye  shall  always  have  with  you."  Certainly. 
But  not  necessarily  stuj)id  poor,  lazy  poor,  sordid  poor, 
dishonest  poor,  licentious  poor,  mischievous  poor,  dis- 
gusting, degraded,  drunken,  haggard,  howling,  evil-eyed 
and  foul-mouthed  poor,  whining  in  the  streets  for  a  six- 
pence, exchanging  it  for  a  glass  of  whiskey,  and  holding 
out  the  hand  for  another  "  for  the  love  of  God."  Yet 
this  is  precisely  the  species  of  poor  which  the  popular 
doctrine  of  Christian  Charit}^  breeds. 

Jesus  fed  the  inultitude  which  followed  him  into  the 
desert;  but  he  gave  no  sixpences  "for  the  love  of  God." 

It  is  reported  that  once^  to  one  person,  he  said,  "  Sell  all 
that  thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor."  But  it  is  not  re- 
ported that  he  ever  gave  monej^  to  the  poor.  Only  once 
does  he  seem  to  have  given  bread ;  and  then  the  occasion 
was  desperate ;  the  hungry  were  in  a  desert,  where  they 
could  neither  make  food  nor  earn  wages. 

Hesjjonsibility  is  the  touchstone  of  that  Penury  which 
it  is  lawful  to  relieve.  The  first  duty  of  every  creature 
is  to  provide  for  itself.  The  creature  that  responds  not 
to  this  law  of  the  Creator  perishes  —  sooner  or  later. 
To  save  it  for  the  moment  from  the  effects  of  its  own 
Irresponsibility  is  merely  to  protract   its   living   death. 


XVI.]  DESTINT   OF    THE    RACE.  425 

Whatever  saps  the  sentiment  of  its  personal  Responsi- 
bility poisons  the  fountains  of  its  existence;  and  ''cliris- 
tian  charity  "  has  been  practising  this  poisoning  trade 
for  man}'  centuries. 

The  -wealthy  classes,  and  the  clergy  holding  their 
purse-strings,  try  to  purchase  a  fictitious  heaven  by  a 
fictitious  beneficence.  The  so-called  "hard-heartedness 
of  the  poor  toward  each  other"  has  always  been  the  pro- 
test of  himian  common-sense  against  the  debasing  and 
destructive  use  of  wealth  to  relieve  poverty  by  annihilat- 
ing the  sentiment  of  personal  Responsibility.  The  hon- 
est poor  know  the  value  of  the  law  "•  He  that  will  not 
work,  neither  shall  he  eat." 

The  rich,  who  need  not  work,  naturally  yield  to  the 
temptation  to  excuse  their  own  eating,  by  providing 
food  for  those  who  will  not  work.  But  the  only  true 
function  of  wealth  is  to  provide  for  and  to  oversee  work  ; 
the  workers  then  take  care  of  themselves. 

The  sense  of  Responsibility  vitalizes  the  universe. 
Where  it  is  lacking,  society  falls  into  anarchy,  families 
into  decay,  and  individuals  into  wretchedness;  the 
genius  frustrates  his  own  career,  the  father  abuses  his 
powers,  the  mother  neglects  her  offspring,  filial  piety 
and  civic  fealty  vanish  away,  and  vice  and  poverty  be- 
come the  rule  instead  of  the  exception. 

The  root  of  all  Morality  is  Respc)nsibility,  and  its  fruit  is 
true  Religion.  Shall  Benevolence  then  set  itself  to  cut 
off  the  root  and  spoil  the  fruit?  The  Charity  of  the 
Future  will  grasp  the  idea  of  watering  this  root  of 
Morality  to  reap  the  fruit  of  Religion.  No  good  is  done 
to  the  vicious  poor  until  they  are  set  with  their  faces 
heavenward;  nor  to  the  shiftless  poor  until  they  are 
taught  the  lessons  of  a  personal  independent  responsi- 
bility. To  inspire  them  with  the  wish,  the  will  and 
the  knowledge  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and  their 
little  ones,  is  the  sole  business  of  "  christian  charity." 

The  sentiment  of  Responsibility  will  not  grow  except 
in  good  society.  That  does  not  mean  in  fashionable 
high  life  (which  is  always  bad  society),  nor  does  it 
mean  in  intercouise  with  the  rich  and  notorious,  with 
people  of  leisure  and  pleasure,  statesmen  and  soldiers, 


42G  THE   INTELLECTTJAL   AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

popular  writers,  orators  and  artists.  It  meaus  that 
really  good  society  which  is  everywhere  enjoyed  among 
the  steady-living  and  the  steady-working  masses  of  man- 
kind, where  every  social  virtue  is  conscripted  into  ser- 
vice and  disciplined  by  daily  toil  and  family  affection. 

The  sense  of  responsibility  cannot  be  dinned  or 
driven  into  the  poor,  by  preaching  and  praying,  alms- 
giving and  commitments  to  houses  of  correction.  It 
must  be  instilled  and  inspired  by  sympathy,  counsel, 
judicious  assistance  and  example.  Like  love  it  is  not 
bought  nor  sold. 

Like  affectionateness  too  it  is  hereditable  and  trans- 
missible from  generation  to  generation.  As  the  spaniel 
is  the  type  and  illustration  of  the  descent  of  a  cultivated 
attachment,  so  the  watch-dog  is  the  type  and  illustration 
of  the  stirpal  growth  of  responsibility,  under  the  unin- 
terrupted influence  of  a  habit  of  superintendence.  The 
"family  servant"  has  disappeared,  only  because  the  fam- 
ily itself  has  lost  its  homestead.  It  was  the  homestead  — 
not  the  family —  that  bred  its  generations  of  menial  care- 
takers. 

Circumstances — not  dictation;  the  unvarying  call  for 
comprehended  assistance  from  others — not  any  calcula- 
tion of  profit  or  pleasure;  these  create  and  foster  the 
gi'owth  of  responsibility  —  in  servants — in  masters  —  in 
every  creature.  For  it  is  often  strongest  and  steadiest 
where  unacknowledged  and  ill  paid ;  and  it  reaches  its 
acme  of  intensity  in  the  heart  of  the  mother  of  an  uncon- 
scious babe,  or  imbecile  cliild,  all  hope  of  reward  fore- 
stalled and  barred  out  forever. 

To  rouse  the  dormant  sentiment  in  the  irresponsible 
poor,  and  to  sow  thereby  the  seed  of  it  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  their  unborn  offspring,  is  the  noblest  task  of  be- 
nevolence and  the  only  hope  of  the  future.  The  task  is 
set  —  the  task  is  undertaken — by  the  new  Organization 
of  Charities. 

Organized  Charity  requires :  1,  a  perfect  census  and 
registry  of  professional  beggary ;  2,  the  subdivision  of 
the  whole  field  of  beggary  into  small  districts ;  3,  com- 
plete intercommunication  and  mutual  intelligence  be- 
tween each  district  and  the  rest ;  4,  a  resident  superin- 


XVI.]  DESTIXY   OF    THE    RACE.  427 

tendent,  a  local  corps  of  visitors,  a  district  house,  which 
should  be  a  temporary  refuge  and  place  of  friendl}*  de- 
tention, as  well  as  an  office  of  observation  and  informa- 
tion; 5,  a  close  alliance  with  the  municipal  police,  not 
for  the  application  of  force  in  behalf  of  charity,  but  for 
the  substitution  of  force  by  charity ;  6,  a  close  alliance 
•with  the  medical  profession,  especially  in  their  municipal 
duty;  7,  a  close  alliance  with  the  trades-people,  manu- 
facturers and  merchants  in  each  district  or  neighborhood ; 

8,  a  close  alliance  with  clergymen,  magistrates,  trustees 
of  benevolent  endowments,  hospitals  and  asylums;   and 

9,  a  perfect  understanding  with  the  overseers  and  jailers 
of  houses  of  detention  and  correction,  prisons  and  peni- 
tentiaries ;  so  that,  when  confirmed  vagabonds  have  re- 
sisted all  friendly  treatment,  and  been  committed  for  cor- 
rection, they  should  be  taught  perforce  cleanly  habits  and 
industr}^  and  be  kejDt  out  of  the  public  streets  a  suffi- 
cient length  of  time  to  make  a  new  trial  more  hopeful. 

The  extension  of  this  system,  the  success  of  which 
has  already  appeared  in  more  than  one  city,  to  all  the 
cities  and  towns  of  an  empire,  is  sure  to  be  made ;  and 
finally  to  the  whole  world.  All  the  old  forms  of  Phi- 
lanthropy as  a  method  for  gratifjdng  the  pride  of  pa- 
trons, or  appeasing  the  conscience  of  wrong-doers  in 
anticipation  of  the  Day  of  Judgment,  are  destined  to  a 
slow  but  sure  decay  and  final  extinction.  But  in  all 
ages  to  come  true  Pliilauthropy  must  gratify  itself  by 
reasonable  exercises;  and  more  and  more  will  it  take  on 
the  aspect  of  Public  Spirit, —  that  indescribable  desire 
which  the  wise  and  just  man  feels  to  render  back  the 
benefits  which  he  has  received, —  to  bless  future  genera- 
tions with  the  blessing  with  which  past  generations 
have  blessed  him, —  to  show  his  love  to  the  Creator  of 
his  own  happiness  in  the  small,  by  enhancing  the  hnp[)i- 
ness  of  his  fellow-creatures  in  the  large, —  to  please  his 
imagination  with  pictures  of  good  deeds  not  limited  to 
the  short  term  of  his  own  earthlj^  life,  but  vicariously 
immortal,  like  his  own  soul. 

Out  of  the  sentiment  of  Responsibility  as  felt  by  men  in 
their  capacity  of  begetters  and  providers  and  by  women 
in  their  capacity  of  nourishers   and   nurses,  have   pro- 


428  THE   INTELLECTUAL   AND   MORAL  [LECT. 

ceeded  the  sentiments  of  religious  veneration  for  an 
ideal  Providence,  and  religious  respect  for  a  God  of  laTv 
and  love.  To  cultivate  religion  among  the  lowest 
classes  of  mankind  by  appealing  to  an  intellect  in  them 
destitute  of  the  first  principles  of  order,  or  to  affections 
in  them  of  which  they  are  both  constitutionally  and 
habitually  deprived,  is  a  mere  fatuous  tradition  of  the 
trade  of  Theology.  Rouse  in  them  care-taking  for  them- 
selves and  painstaking  for  their  relatives,  and  a  new  light 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  great  Care-taker  of  all  will 
dawn  upon  them.  Teach  them  to  hear  the  call  of  famil- 
iar duty  and  to  answer  the  prayer  of  husband,  wife  and 
child,  and  they  learn  fast  enough  to  pray.  The  Organ- 
ization of  Charity  is  therefore  destined  to  be  the  Reor- 
ganization of  Religion. 

As  to  the  Religion  of  the  future  I  have  perhaf)s  said 
in  my  Tenth  Lecture  all  that  it  is  safe  to  say.  The 
progress  of  the  physical  sciences,  of  the  material  organ- 
ization of  society,  and  of  its  mental  and  artistic  train- 
ing, goes  on  before  the  eyes  of  the  beholder.  But  who 
can  see  those  mysterious  undercurrents  of  sentiment 
which  are  depositing  the  spiritual  strata  in  the  ocean  of 
the  Time? 

Nothing  is  so  hard  to  discover  as  a  tendency.  It  re- 
quired a  thousand  experiments  and  most  elaborately 
curious  machinery  to  get  the  curve  of  a  cannon  ball 
through  the  air,  and  to  show  that  every  —  the  slightest 
—  change  of  shape  in  the  projectile  produced  some  cor- 
responding change  in  the  trajectory.  No  soldier  knows 
how  the  corps  d'armee  with  which  he  fights  is  manceu- 
vring.  If  the  army  be  very  great,  the  commanding  gen- 
eral himself  is  often  doubtful  to  which  side  the  battle 
sways.  How  much  less  efficient  must  be  the  means  of 
observation  of  the  philosopher  regarding  the  tendencies 
of  his  age  in  spiritual  things? 

It  is  noteworthy  that  every  religious  zealot  supposes 
his  own  sect  to  be  on  the  way  to  pre-eminence.  His 
point  of  view  being  necessarily  low  down,  and  his  hori- 
zon limited  to  the  region  in  which  his  own  creed  is 
j)rofessed,  he  can  frame  no  just  comparison  between  its 
general   acceptability    and   that   of    other  creeds.     Hia 


XVI.]  DESTINY   OF   THE   RACE.  429 

prophetic  hopes  are  merely  ardent  ^^'ishes.  What  his 
reason  accepts  as  divine  he  takes  for  granted  must 
become  universal. 

Every  priesthood  therefore  forecasts  the  Destiny  of 
Man  in  the  shape  of  a  Millennium  when  the  work  of 
propagating  its  peculiar  dogmatic  theology  and  special 
ritual  of  worsliip  shall  have  been  completely  successful 
in  all  quarters  of  the  globe.  Tliis,  however,  being 
equally  true  of  the  priesthoods  of  Buddha,  of  Mahomet 
and  of  Christ,  and  of  all  the  divergent  sects  of  each, 
renders  the  prophecy  in  each  case  vain,  so  far  as  it 
stands  on  its  own  merits  as  a  prophecy  of  the  Propa- 
ganda. There  may  be  other  reasons  for  considering  the 
prophecy  of  success  for  one  religion  better  than  for  the 
rest;  but  no  reliance  can  be  placed  on  the  ardent  wishes 
and  earnest  faith  which  inspire  the  prophecy  in  any  case. 

To  learn  the  tendency  of  mankind  in  matters  of  faith, 
one  must  first  consider  that  religious  faith  is  a  corn- 
pound  of  morality  and  metaphysics;  that  is,  of  all  that 
men  suppose  respecting  God  and  his  creation,  Man's 
nature,  and  the  well-being  of  Human  society.  If,  then, 
a  tendency  towards  certain  stable  views  respecting  one 
or  other  of  these  elements  of  religion  can  be  clearly  dis- 
cerned, the  whole  religious  tendency  can  be  at  least 
partially  suspected. 

If  it  be  true  that  humankind  is  becoming  more  and 
more  conscientious,  just  and  temperate  in  common  life, 
there  must  be  a  tendency  of  their  religious  sentiments 
towards  the  worship  of  a  truly  worthy  God.  If  men 
and  women  in  the  mass  are  growing  to  be  more  humane 
and  pitiful  and  mercifully  just  towards  each  other,  their 
God  is  also  growing  kinder  and  more  loving  to  them. 
By  combining  these  two  tendencies  of  human  society 
we  get  as  a  resultant  a  direct  gravitation  towards  the 
religion  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth ;  or,  what  may  express  it 
better,  to  that  element  which  is  common  to  Confutzee- 
ism,  Mahometanism  and  Christianity,  embodied  in  the 
XJhinese  motto  "Thou  shalt  not  do  to  another  what  thou 
shoukVst  dislike  him  to  do  to  thee.''  and  in  the  Chris- 
tian formula,  ''Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 


430  THE  intp:llectual  and  moral  [lect. 

On  the  intellectual  or  metaphysical  side,  the  tendency 
of  the  educated  part  of  the  race  is  directed  at  present 
by  the  physical  sciences :  and  there  seems  to  be  no 
counteracting  influence  except  that  of  mysticism.  But 
mysticism  is  the  metaphysical  philosophy  of  human 
affections,  protesting  against  the  controlling  dictation  of 
the  human  understanding.  Now  if  mankmd  be  really 
educating  tlieir  understanding  to  a  more  vigorous  treat- 
ment of  all  the  facts  of  the  universe,  the  result  seems 
inevitable,  that  the  affections  must  be  subjugated  to 
calmer  and  juster  contemplation  of  facts.  Only  that 
residuum  of  mystical  pliilosophy  will  then  remain 
which  shall  correspond  to  actual  facts  —  after  a  thor- 
ough-going investigation  of  the  universe  so  far  as  man's 
apjiaratus  of  discovery  and  criticism  can  reach  it. 

There  is  but  one  mystical  fact  outside  the  pale  of  scien- 
tific research,  viz.,  the  fact  of  intelligent  self-existence. 
This  of  course  can  never  be  investigated  by  any  scien- 
tific process,  because  it  is  itself  the  investigator.  It 
knows  itself  to  be ;  but  how  it  came  to  be,  it  cannot 
know ;  nor  by  what  means  it  knows  itself  to  be.  Its  at- 
tributive powers  it  can  study  while  embodied  in  those 
jjowers;  but  when  disembodied — it  vanishes  instantly 
from  the  field  of  investigation.  It  can  fancy  what  it 
pleases  about  itself,  both  while  embodied  and  when  dis- 
embodied ;  but  it  can  understand  nothing.  In  ages  when 
the  understanding  had  no  physical  apparatus,  no  store  of 
already  investigated  facts  to  suggest  and  guide  to  fresh 
investigation,  the  fancy  was  at  its  highest  and  most  con- 
stant and  delightful  or  unhappy  exercises ;  but  in  tliis 
age  of  complete  and  satisfactory  occupation  for  the  hu- 
man understanding,  with  so  much  found  out  and  so 
much  to  find  out,  man  has  neither  time  nor  inclination 
for  the  amusements  of  fancy  outside  of  the  world  of 
real  life.  Hunting  in  the  forest  has  been  given  up  as  a 
regular  occupation  by  those  who  have  fertile  farms  and 
comfortable  city  homes  and  exacting  business.  So,  in 
the  mental  world,  men  see  too  much  flesh  and  blood  to' 
care  for  ghosts;  consort  delightfully  with  too  many 
saints  and  sages  in  the  body,  to  invent  invisible  angels ; 
and  ai€  too  much  and  too  successfully  dealing  with  act- 


XVI.]  DESTINY    OF   THE   RACE.  431 

ual  hells  in  a  way  of  benevolence  to  take  spiritual  stock 
in  a  theological  hell  which  no  one  ever  was  certainly 
known  to  go  to  or  come  from. 

Medicine  has  dissipated  the  fancy  of  diabolic  and  an 
gelic  [jossession ;  botany  and  mineralogy  have  brushed 
the  plush  and  dew  of  folk-lore  off  from  human  history; 
chemistry  has  unmasked  magic;  geology,  geogi-aphy 
and  astronomy  have  invaded  and  occupied  the  fairest 
and  wealthiest  domains  of  the  mystical  imagination ;  and 
physics  as  the  science  of  the  invisible  world-force  has  in- 
oculated the  human  fancy  itself  with  ideas  of  the  unity, 
simplicity  and  unchangeable  regularity  of  the  entire 
realm  of  existence. 

The  tendency  therefore  to  some  sort  of  unitarianism, 
—  not  only  antipolytheistic,  and  antitritheistic,  but 
antitriunitheistic  (except  in  a  Sabellian  sense) — is 
unmistakable,  wherever  popular  education  prevails ;  and 
when  women  are  educated  equally  with  men,  both  sexes 
must  share,  each  according  to  its  several  nature,  in  a  de- 
parture from  the  mysticism  of  the  old  prevailing  creeds, 
and  in  a  common  tendency  to  make  all  religious  feeling 
and  conduct  to  consist  simply  in  expressions  of  confi- 
dence in  the  providence  of  one  God  and  of  benevolence 
towards  all  his  creatures.  Religion  will  in  fact  become 
simply  Morality  and  Philantlu'opy. 

Two  words  will  disappear  —  Schism  and  Apostasy — 
in  their  present  religious  sense.  The}'  will  b*e  recog- 
nized, socially,  as  effete  Schimjyfwdrter^  "Shame  words" 
of  two  primary  human  rights  —  the  right  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  freely  "obey  the  witness  in  liis  own  soul,"  and 
the  right  of  individuals  to  freely  modify  all  organiza- 
tions of  social  intercourse  according  to  the  necessities  of 
inward  and  outward  experience.  When  it  comes  to  be 
recognized  that  God  is  adorable  and  lovable,  but  not 
knijwable,  an  authoritative  Church  will  not  exist,  Schism 
will  cease  to  be  Dissent,  and  Apostasy  will  be  notliing 
worse  than  a  woman's  change  of  name  at  marriage. 
When  Theolog}'  expurgates  the  Syllogism  from  its 
creeds,  the  human  heart  can  become  theological,  and  the 
distracted  brain  settle  down  into  rational  and  peaceful 
mysticism.     The  ^personal  equation  in    all    the   physical 


432  THE    INTELLECTUAL    AND    MORAL  [LECT. 

sciences  being  established,  the  personal  equation  in  relig- 
ion will  be  discovered  and  believed.  If  there  be  Seraphs 
and  Cherubs  in  heaven,  there  must  be  both  burners  and 
shiners  on  the  earth,  and  these  will  constitute  the  o\\\y 
two  great  sects,  to  one  of  which  women  naturally  belong 
and  into  the  other  men  naturally  gather  themselves. 
But  the  creed  of  both  will  be  that  unwritten  Morality 
Avhich  binds  the  human  soul  to  God,  and  that  unwritten 
Philanthropy  which  binds  all  human  souls  together. 
Thus  the  Religion  of  the  Future  will  in  fact  become 
merely  the  harmony  of  Morality  and  Philanthropy. 

Morality  and  Philanthropy? 

For  the  mystic  these  are  cold  words.  To  the  Chris- 
tian intelligence  they  are  words  burning  hot  with  man's 
gratitude  for  the  past  and  confidence  in  the  future. 
Words?  No,  not  words — but  names, — names  for  a  new 
and  future  zeal  for  doing  good.  "Freely  ye  have 
received,"  they  say:  "Freely  give."  New  names  for 
Vital  Godliness.  Names  for  that  boundless,  absolute, 
ecstatic,  self-sacrificing  Love  of  the  Father,  which  shone 
on  the  face  of  Jesus  the  Anointed  and  the  Anointer; 
which  has  illuminated  the  faces  of  thousands  of  saints 
and  martyrs  who  died  calling  on  his  name,  and  claiming 
the  performance  of  liis  promise  that  the  Truth  should 
make  them  Free,  with  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  Sons 
of  God. 

The  Religion  of  the  future  will  be  Free  Religion ;  in 
no  antinomian  sense;  but  in  the  sense  assigned  to  it  by 
the  Type  man;  who  went  about  doing  good  and  preach- 
ing righteousness;  healing  the  sick  and  casting  out 
devils;  saying  that  neither  at  Jerusalem  nor  on  any 
other  templed  height  God  should  henceforth  be  wor- 
shipped ;  but  that  God  was  a  spirit,  and  should  be  wor- 
shipped in  the  human  spirit,  and  with  simple,  fearless, 
practical,  affectionate  and  independent  lionesty,  inspired 
by  a  love  of  personal  goodness  (holiness),  and  confident 
of  a  happy  end  in  the  bosom  of  creative  love.  All 
creeds  must  simplify  themselves  into  this  creed  of  Jesus, 
and  all  mysticism  become  practical  after  his  example. 

The  Destiny  of  Mankind  becomes  in  this  view  the 
macrocosm  of  the    destiny  of  each  individual;  and   as 


XVI.]  DESTINY   OF   THE    RACE.  433 

all  personal  religion  resolves  itself  into  the  comprehen- 
sion, love  and  practice  of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
Clu-istianity  as  set  forth  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  with  infi- 
nitely varied  applications  to  the  circumstances  of  per- 
sonal existence, —  so  the  religions  of  the  human  race 
must,  in  the  course  of  ages,  be  reduced  to  the  simplicity 
of  the  fundamental :  Be  God's  child  and  Man's  brother. 
No  creed  can  stand  the  fire  of  modern  and  future  sci- 
ence. All  ceremonials  must  become  merely  symbolic. 
The  relationship  of  clergy  to  laity  will  resolve  itself  into 
that  of  leadership  to  following,  in  purity  of  character 
and  wise  beneficence ;  and  no  rewards  in  heaven  or  pun- 
ishments in  hell  will  be  either  desired  or  anticipated ; 
for  Christ  will  have  indeed  come  the  second  time  to  rule 
and  bless  the  world. 


IISTDEX. 


A,  B,  CD,  252 

A  In  Armenian,  233 

A  forms,  240 

A  arrowhead,  239 

A,  AA,  plumes,  228 

AA,  of  astouislimeut,  236 

Abaris.  239 

Abbeville  (Travels,  55 

Abbeville.  188 

Abbot  ((Jen.),  142 

Abrabaiiiic  migration,  144 

Abiabain,  etymology,  170 

Abraham's  fo'otnriuls,  18G 

Absenteeism,  3154 

Aby<los.l47 

Aeaii,  101 

Adam,  43 

Adams,  250 

Adam  and  Kve  legend,  117 

Adam's  I'eaU,  222 

Adam's  liintprints,  180 

Adainic  innocence,  133 

Adjustment   of  property, 

308 
Admiral  y  charts.  333 
Adonai.  Adonis,  282 
Adoption  of  children,  257 
Adnltery.  310 
Advertising  mediums, 386 
jliueas,  10 

./Erolite  worshipped,  27 
^sop,  00 
Agamemnon,  356 
Agas.siz,2,  11,40,  132,199 
Agassiz's  views.  76 
Agassiz's  fish,  86 
Age  of  the  earth.  46 
Agglutination,  179 
Agni  hvnms,  289 
Agriculture,  349 
Aladdin's  jialace,  47 
Alchemy,  334 
Alt  =  bull.  231 
Alfa.  A,  231 
Alphaios,  231 
AUred(KiugM51 
Alp  =  arm,  230 
Alphabet,  214 
Alphabets  named,  251 
Altar  =  mountain,  226 
Altar  Tvith  wedge,  239 
Alternate  generation,  111 
Am,  gem.  278 
Amadis  do  (ianl,  271 
Amber  collection,  85 
Amber  in  trade.  278 
Amenaman,  149 
Amenophis,  154 
Amiens  gravel,  58 
Amn,  .love,  278 
Amosis,  154 
Amten's  tomb.  196 
Amulet  weapons,  263 
Analysis,  82 
Anatomy,  352 
Anastasi  papyrus,  149 
Ancestor     worship,     101, 

255 


Anderson  (Capt.),  3 

Animals  with  lake  dwell- 
ers. 129 

Animals  of  the  pyramid 
age.  155 

Animals  in  and  out  of 
grottos,  262 

Animal  si)eech.400 

Ann  Arbor,  417 

Antelope  in  caves,  53 

Anthracite,  337 

Anthro|iouinr)ihism,  283 

Antlochia,  144 

Antiquity  of  man,  43 

Anlitiuity  of  Egyptian  art, 
105 

Antiquarianism  as  a  study , 
355 

Antiquit^s  celtiques,  57 

Antiquaries,  355 

Antiquarianism,  357 

Anubis,  129,  156,  194,  196 

Apamea,  Ararat,  222 

Ap.appus,  154 

Ape.sMud  men,  119 

Apollo,  400 

Apostasy,  431 

Apportioning  districts,  394 

Apurn,  140 

Arab  eheik,  35,  36 

Arboriculture,  349 

Ararat,  picture,  217,  221 

Archeology,  356 

Archibald, "322 

Architect,  jioet,  215 

Architecture,  183 

Architecture,  modern,  189 

Architcctuic.  ancient.  100 

Architecture. the  building 
of  arks,  218 

Architecture  of  the  fut- 
ure, 410 

Architrave,  211 

Archives,  in  ark,  229 

Arctinus,  first  poet,  215 

Argos,  217 

Arimaspians,  10 

Arithmetic,  23 

Arithmetic  with  savages, 
34,35 

Aristocr.acy,  396 

Aristotle,  9 

Ark  of  Gen.  x..  10,  144 

Ark  of  the  covenant,  226 

Arkite  poetry,  215 

Aries.  218 

Arm,  mountain,  230,  234 

Armenian  A.  explained  by 
Jesus,  233,  237 

Armenian  language,  150 

Am,  ark,  226 

Arretiuo,  34 

Arrowliead,  239 

Arthur  (Kingj,  151 

Arve,  6 

Ar.Y,  citadel,  229 

Artist  and  lion,  68 

Artistic  genius,  184 


Assyrian  letters,  238 
Assyrian,    style,  =  Ionic, 

Astronomy  in  the  future, 

321 
Astrology,  30 
Athos,    island    mountain, 

242 
Atropos,  301 
Aum,  277 

Anrignac  grotto,  261 
Aurochs  in  caves,  63,  129 
Avaris,  148 

Bival-Adonis  worship,  283 

Baalbec,  410 

Biibel,  10,  164,  410 

liache,  6,  39 

liaihman.  107 

ISack  writing,  237 

r,ac(.n,22 

liadues«,311 

Bai;e,  63 

Balfour,  143 

Bancrott,  208 

Bara,  to  create,  215 

Barbar,  pyramid.  224 

Bard,  hs,  Kgyp.,  215 

Bardic  element  in  lan- 
guage, 174 

Baring,  174 

Barkal  mountain,  273 

Barr,  39 

Barter.  382 

Basalt  theory  of  architect- 
ure, 210 

Basques,  Esquimaux,  113 
175 

Bear  picture  on  pebble, 
263 

Beauty,  201 

Beech  and  o.ak  ages,  131 

Beggars,  422 

Belgrade  forest,  143 

Belle-air  skull  type,  118 

Belles-lettres,  402 

Belzoni,  218 

Benev(dence,  423 

Belli  Hassan,  143 

Berber  race.  114,  206 

Berenice,  l.''>0 

Berkeley,  72 

Berlin  survey.  347 

Berserkers,  133 

Berzelius,  11,  209 

Berzil,  iron,  171 

Bessemer  iron,  341 

Bibaii  el  Molouk,  194 

Biers tadt,  208 

Bilingual  inscriptions,  235 

Bimanum,  88 

Biography,  13 

Bird's  head  picture,  26? 

Bird-track  scrip,  248 

Bizo  caves,  53 

Blacks  cheated,  123 

Black  .Tews,  104,  107 

Black  race,  95 


436 


INDEX. 


lilackRiniths,  340 
IJlackstimo,  11 
Blake,  134 
Blanford.  322 
Blazius,  327 
IJIaspliemy,  317 
lUast  furnaces,  337 
Blodi,'et,  327 
lUuineubach's   blmanum, 

88 
r.  laz,  225 
Hog,  devil,  279 
l?i)g»  of  Denmark,  131 
liogrelirs.  128 
Houe  caves,  53 
JSonheur.  2 
Jtoiiivrfril.  152 
Books.  402 
liopp,  10!) 
JSordeii.  39 
ISoswell,  13 
Botany  in  future,  347 
Botanir.al  gardens,  349 
Bothnia.  G4 
Boucher  tie   Perthes,  57, 

185 
Boulaq  museum,  196 
Boiiriieois.  01.  13G 
Bourges  pyramid,  38 
Bou.^^treplir.don.  236 
Bow-wow  theory,  169 
Bozzel,  215 
BrachycLphs,  2C8 
ISrahma,  278 
Brain  of  man,  91 
Brixham  cave,  .'iS,  58 
Broca's  bones.  90 
Broca's       measurements, 

103 
Broca  on  cave-men.  2G7 
Bronze  age  language,  175 
Broun,  3"J2 
Brown  race.  114 
Brown  (John).  ^71 
Brown  of  ,vt.  .Seurin.  341 
Brown  (H  K.),  400 
Bruce.  213 
Brugsrh.  143.  2GG 
Bucklanil.  52,  58 
Buckle.  255 
Build,  make.  215 
Buiniet  188 
Buuseu's  Egypt,  34 
Buuseii's  piio   etics,  234 
J>uoiiarot;i.  405 
Burial  f'>r  safety,  199 
Burke  (E),  175 
Burne's  I  ravels,  222 
Burton.  30 
Busk.  107.  132 
Buteaux.  GO 
Byron's  couplet.  152 
IJyzautium,  bOl 

Cabala,  274 
Oabiri,  188 
Cadmus,  10, 152,  246 
(.Jadmuan  letters,  238 
Caen  cathedral,  220 
Cain  legend,  117 
Oalfrcs.  142 
Calatnites,  51 
Oallirrhoe,  144 
Cambridge,  417 
Cambyses,  101 
Camel    unknown    to    the 

l)yramids.  155 
Campbell  (,r.  J>".),  G4 
Campbell's  ledge,  207 
Camper.  107 
Canal  mania,  337 
Canals,  387 
Canne,  169 


Canoes  In  bogs.  130 
Cannibalism.  130,  268 
Caoutcliouc,  350 
Caph,  the  h:ind,  229 
Capital  =  <aj)itol.  221,  229 
('apital  and  luterost,  379 
Cardium  cilule,  132 
C.irlomaii.  275 
Carlyle.  175 
Caruak,  100 
Cartouche,  ark,  220 
Caspar  ilauscr.  00 
Case  (Chief  .Justice).  288 
(.'ases  in  Egyptian,  180 
Cat  absent"  from   pilotis, 

129 
Cat  unknown  in  Egypt,  155 
CatacUsms,  137 
Catechism.  307 
Cathedral,  203 
Cattle-breeding,  350 
Cave  bear,  204.  207 
Cave  relics,  52 
Cave  sculptures.  185 
Cave  theory  in  architect- 
ure. 209 
Caves  in  Brazil,  G5 
Cella  of  temple,  209 
Cells,  114 
Celsius,  04 
Centaurs,  247 
Cephiilization.  90 
C  Tberus,  194 
Ceremonial.  255 
Chambers.  7G,  322 
ChampoUiou.  155,  248 
Chandra.  144 
Cliaos.  10 

Character  of  savages,  201 
Charcoal  burning,  352 
Charity.  424 
Chase  (,!'.  E.).  35 
Chateau  de  Gallion,  47 
Chav.innes  piloti,  128 
Cluini:-al  geology.  5 
Cbi-mistry  of  the  future, 

Cheops.  154 

Chihf  adoption.  257 

Cbillon.  152 

Chimpanzi^e.  119 

Chinese  language,  179. 243 

Chinese  not  originally 
monosyllabic.  181 

Chinese  radiirals.  251 

Chinese  scrip,  237,  240 

C'liuese  temple,  210 

Choate's  writing,  233 

Chokier  c.ive,  64 

Christ  of  D  uniccker.  93 

Christian  cliaritv-.  424 

Christol.  :ri.  d.  ch.,  53 

Christ  V,  53 

Christianity,  19 

Christianity  ancestor  wor- 
ship. 270 

Chronolo,'y  of  E'rvpt,  36 

Chureli,2.20.S,41i 

Cieero.  258 

Circle  of  stones,  215 

Villi  aiitiqae.  200 

City  versus  country.  390 

Civilisation.  122.201 

Civilization  and  iron,  342 

Clan  life,  253 

Cyclic  poets.  215 

Cvclopi'an  remains,  218 

Classitication  of  sciences.  7 

Classilicalionof  languages, 
100 

Classification  of  nature  by 
Chinese,  244 

Cleft  rocks,  273 


Clem,!nt{Dr.).  2C3 

Cleopatra's  barge,  372 

Climate  of  the  future,  323 

Clotbo.  301 

Clubs.  309 

Coal,  glacial.  51 

Coal  and  iron.  330 

Cochonn;  jn'ramid,  154 

Coeducation  of  sexes,  413 

Coinage  debased,  383 

Columbaria,  197 

Column-mountain.  227 

Columns  in  pairs,  225 

Comets  (lrea<lful,  33 

Comfort  in  life.  372 

Commerce  iu  the  future, 
384 

Commercial  navy  of  Eng- 
land, 387 

Committees.  3G9 

Common  Law,  301 

Comparative  Philology, 
159 

Complex  relationships .204 

Compound  words  iu  Chi- 
nese, 181 

Compulsory  ed  ucation,413 

Conrte,  72,  105 

Cone  of  the  Tiniere,  64 

Congresses,  300 

Conjecture  versus  knowl- 
edge. 22 

Conjunction  of  planets,  36 

Conscience  of  beasts,  92 

Constantinople,  300 

Coii«titutioual  provisos, 
303 

Construction,  20G 

Consultation,  307 

Contour  curves,  331 

Contractor's  pole,  123 

Convenience,  313 

Conversation,  70 

Coop,  cup.  cap,  229 

Coptos.  150 

Coral  reef  man,  65 

Cornell.  417 

Cosaguina.  331 

Cost  of  manual  labor,  377 

Cottage  theory  of  archi- 
tecture, 211 

Cow's  rock,  187 

Crassus,  144 

Cratvlus,  100 

Crawford,  131, 155 

Cretaceous  age,  49 

Creuzot,  341 

Crinoids.  85 

Criticism.  357 

CroU's  theorv.  37,  325 

Cromlechs.  100 

Crosse's  experiments,  101 

Crystal  in  sea.  203 

Cuneiform.  2;;o.  242 

Cupola,  ark,  226 

Ciivier.  53 

Cvclopeau,  190.215 

Cypress  forest.  04 

Cyrena  fluniiualis,  59 

Cyrus,  14,  152 

D.  tor.  mountain,  242 

D'Archiac,  00 

Dal'.ail.  DeBiR  (Hebrew), 

Dagger  handle,  260 
Damascus.  142 
Dana,  0.  OO 
Dannceker,  93 
Daniels,  218 
Darwin.  0.  76 
Date  of  letters,  247 
David  the  poet,  287 


INDEX. 


437 


David  (L.).  405 

Davis.  lO'J 

Day  =  H)00  years.  60 

Duad  laumiancs.  17G 

DoaiMinr.i.  1.S7 

Dca  li..s4.:;0-.' 

Itobas.-dcuiiiafr'".  3S3 

Di  Heaiiin  iiit.4l.58 

l)e  Coiila:,ges.  i;  J7,  aG6 

Deep-river  tish.  51 

I>eer-falliii^'.  'JGO 

Deism.  i;7!) 

De  (iohiueall.  115.  184 

Dele>;atiou     by     election, 

303 
Delphian  olinsm.  273 
Delt>s.L' 18.  ooG 
Deltas.  140 
Delta,  letter.  242 
D-lii!;e     impossible,    137, 

26tj 
Demavend,  222 
De  Merc  y.  (iO 
OenuuiKe.  24.  50 
DeniDcritus.  4ii(j 
Driiiise  lav  I  ni  lu,  Gl 
Denudation.  48 
Descartes,  11 
Desert  belt.  142 
DesortK  K  2.  04,  114 
Desor  palafi.tes.  12t> 
Desor  on  the  l!eri>i;rs,  206 
De  Soto's  horse,  70 
Destiny.  295 
Destination.  300 
Deuraliiiii.  In 
Devflopinr:  t,  73 
De  Wrueiiil.  258 
D  -voiiian  ma,  43 
Dliorhainides,  186 
Dialects.  232 
Di.ilfCts  ot  ideas,  399 
Diain  )iid  diili.  345 
Diaua.  217 
Dick.-ns.  15 
Dignity  ot  man,  08 
Dii  Ktikiles,  258 
Dijon.  37:i 
Diinvium,  57 
Diluvial  man.  55 
Di^hi'l  bo^,]28 
I):^.^."ntis^t•Uil.  118 
I  i!.iaeu<l  and  interest,  381 
1>  's;  of  earlv  man.  129 
Dolii-hocepiis.  2G8 
Dollars  worth,  382 
D  limens.  53 
Dolmens   of  the    Sahara, 

218 
Dome,  nioniitain.  226 
Dor.  arm,  130 
Dordogne  caves.  185 
Doric  stvle,  227 
Dorus,  10 

Dovetailed  door,  127 
Dowler.  05 
Dragon  scrip.  24G 
Dritt.  57,323 
Druidmounds,53,174,  274 
Drvads,  274 
Duality,  220,  222 
Dubois.  00 
Dumas,  11 
Duplication,  224 
Dupont.  121,  205 
Dynasties,  Kgypt,  146 

Early  social  life.  122 
Earthquake  tides,  0 
Eclipse  of  Thales,  37 
Economics,  371 
Edenmvth.  133 
Education,  304,  411 


Egyptian  relit  s.  GO 
Egyjitiaii  chronology,  154 
Ekvptiau    language,    158, 

177 
Egvptian  propylon.  219 
Kk'vptian  letter  .S.  241 
Egyptian  symbols.  250 
Egyptian  tombs,  256 
Elections.  393 
Elephant.  231.  155 
Elephant   head   on    bone, 

258 
Elevation  of  lands,. 51 
Elevation  of  .'•t  a  level  51 
Elevation  of  >'■  rway,  G4 
Eleven-vear  cvclo,  32 
Elijah.  407 
Elisha's  axe,  340 
Eliot,  322 
Elves.:i3l 
Elysmin,  2G9 
Eiiianations.  237 
Emerson.  208,  255 
Enchanted  Kronnd.  45 
Endowments.  420 
Engihonl  cave.  54 
Engis  scull.  54,  121 
English  language,  401 
Entail,  3G«i 
Entef,  154 
Enthusiasm.  2 
Entomhmi'ut,  199 
Environment,  l'J8 
Envy.  317 
Ei>hesiis.  27 
Kjdiesiaii        silversmiths, 

224 
Ejiic  cycle.  216 
Er(linan:i,  7 
Ereck(ark).  144 
Erie  canal.  387 
Erosion,  48 
Erosion    since    the    bone 

beds.  50 
Erosion  at  Marseilles,  333 
Esquimaux.  135 
Esquimaux  in  I'rance,  113 
Espy,  2 

Eternal  mansion,  269 
Ethnology.  359 
Euclid,  19.41).  G9 
Etisebius,  358 
Evans  (J),  GO.  109 
Evaporation,  325 
Excavations.  356 
Existence.  430 
E.xperiment.  22 
Expression,  399 

Facer e.  215 
Fact,  fiction.  407 
Failure,  297 
Falconer,  53.  59,  258 
Fame.  302,  404 
Family.  04 

Family  life  in  tombs,  193 
Fancy"in  science.  22 
Fancy  of  t  he  ancients,  228 
Faradav,  3 
Fatalism,  303 
Fate,  301 

Fauna  successive,  49 
Faust.  27G 
Feasts  funereal.  2G2 
Feather,  plume,  234 
P'erry  (M.j,  417 
Fetichism.  270 
Figurative  writing,  245 
Fine  arts,  405 
p'inger-rlngs.  372 
Finance,  373 

Fire  In   many  languages, 
182 


Fish-garabol  scrip,  248 
Flint  hatchets.  53 
Flint  forgeries.  GO 
Flood  revolutions,  140 
Flora  successive.  49 
Florida  blacks.  123 
Flower.  On 

Flutes  in  columns,  227 
Fohi-cadraus.  240 
Font  of  baptism.  227 
Food  of  lake  dwolli.rs.  127 
Food  of  Jialtic  men.  130 
Footprints,  180 
Forbis.  14 
Forces  delineil.  S 
Forged  Hints.  (!0 
Forniafi'ins,  47 
Form-for<'e.  9.  102 
Forest  t  li  '■  ry  01  a.  chitect- 

ure,  213 
Forests  saved.  350 
Forests  H.:d  riin.  142 
Forstcr'sbook.  151 
Fossil  strata.  02 
F.issil  forms.. •;47 
Four  types.  77 
Free  ma-ionry,  309 
Free  religiiii",  432 
French  map  of  pop.,  112 
French  dialects.  100 
Friar  J!  u-.on.  270 
Funerary  grot,  261 

Galitzin.lOO 
Gainie.s  V.iliey.  04 
(larrigoii's  pebble,  263 
Garrison.  12 
Gaudani  1.  ISO 
Gaudry,  GO 
Gaussen.  276 
Geikie,  14 

Gem  superstition,  271 
Genesis.  43 
Genius,  105.  404 
Geodesv,  332 
Geography,  38.  331 
Geology,  4.  343 
Geological  series,  40 
Geometry.  23 
Gerryniandi'ring,  394 
Gibberish.  270 
Gibbon,  10 
Gibraltar  relics,  60 
Giraffe.  l."po 
Giralda.  152 
Girar.l.  11 
Glacial  age.  37.  64 
Glacial  coal.  51 
Glacial  seratches.  208 
Glacier  of  the  Aar,  2 
Glaciers,  olrl.  323 
Glacies.  l'<  rinian,  323 
Glass  uar.  51 
Glass  Rupeistition.  271 
Glidden,  31 

Gnosticism.  21.  27.  233 
Goat  in  caves.  53 
Goethe.  15 
Gobble.  270 
God  defined   2.S0 
Godliness.  432 
Godwin  (.\usten),  53 
Goffontai  le.  54 
Gold.  345.  3.-<4 
Goorlness.  300 
(riirilla's  thumb.  89 
(Jothic  .style,  203 
Graeclli.  151 
Grandison.  178 
(irahanKC).  142 
Giant.  11.39 
Gratio'.tt.  91.  107 
Gravel  bids,  97 


438 


INDEX. 


Gr«-en8and  age,  48 
GreK'8  Creed  of  C,  281 
Grev  (Asa).  7<! 
Griinin's  l:iw,  171, 178, 230 
Grotto.  AurigiiMC,  2G1 
Growth  t'or<'e,  8 
Gulf  of  Bothnia,  G4 
G-william.  252 

Haa  =  100  000,000.  23i 

Habitat,  ,Si 

IIal)itat  produces  variety, 
122 

Hadei,  200 

Hadrian's  tomb,  I'.i] 

Haidingcr.  2S 

Haldf^man,  109 

Halicavnassus.  190 

Hall  (.Tas.),  208 

Hanianiat,  149 

Hani-liHin.  273 

Hirailton,  105 

Han  dynasty,  247 

Hand.eai).  cup.  229 

Hand-print,  187 

Hand-i)rint  in  many  lan- 
guages, 1S2 

Hare  (R.).  !19 

Hare  not  in  pilotis,  129 

Harmony.  201 

Hasslor.  39 

Hatasu.15-1: 

Haujit,  20S 

Hauran,  142 

Hayden,  35 

Hazel-nms,  128 

Head  in  many  languages, 
182 

Heaven,  270 

Hubert,  GO 

Hebrew  patriarchs.  144 

Hebrew  lan.truafie.  158 

Hebrew  etymologies,  170 

Hebrew  letters,  237 

Hel>ron,148 

Heer(0.),51.G4 

Hegel,  72,  255 

Helen.  9 

Hell.  300,  322 

Hendctrson,  G5 

Hengstenbertf,  276 

Hennessey,  323 

Henry,  32'7,  330 

Herculaneuni,  87 

Heredity,  42G 

Herfidotus.  9 

Hieranliv.  votinsr.  394 

lli.-n«lviiliics.  1^45 

Hil<lrflJi,2liS,  '.iSS 

Hindu  paKoda.  219 

Hinckley  (T.i.li 

History,  355 

Historical  travellers,  14 

Hissarlik,  35G 

Hitchcock.  187 

Hi-thseu,  244 

Hoai-nan-tseu,  247 

lloang-ti,  247 

Hoan;;  ho,  130 

Hohljerf?  skull,  118 

Holiness.  4H2 

Hooi;iioai,  170 

Horoscope  wanted,  29 

Horse  unknown,  155 

Horseshoe  fetich.  272 

Horse  picture,  259 

Host,  wafer.  27G 

Hottentot's  bones,  90 

Hottentots,  142 

Hiigel-Kraber,  2G8 

Hugo  (V.J,  15 


Hui,  149 

Human  bones  stratified.  53 
Human  lKin<l.  187 
Humboldt  (W.I.  1G5 
IlunibMlilt.Klacier.  135 
Huniplivcvs  I  Gen.),  142 
Hunt  I  W.I.  409 
Hunter.  o.S.  :!'_'2 
Hunmian  roeks,  48 
Husehke.  107 
Huxlev.  70,  89 
Hydra,  247 
Hyena,  cave,  53 
Hyksos.31.14G.  155,  283 
Hygiene,  352 
Hyiiostasis,  238 

Icswaca,  144,  217 
Idealism  in  arch.,  222 
Idioms.  397 
Udefonso,  G5 
Imaijes  of  the  dead,  199 
Imitation  words,  1G5 
Immnrtalitv.  198,  204, 2G9 
Imiiosts,  ;;74 
Incredibility.  153 
Indian  langiiages,  17G 
Indolence  of  despair,  123 
Indraism.  254 
Indra  hymns,  289 
Intinite,  numlier,  234 
Infinite.  :i  mn(hn-n idea, 281 
Inflected  languages,  179 
Inscription.  Lycopolis.  152 
Inscriptnjn  at  Zerbhokhia, 

289 
Interjection  words,  1G5 
Inteliei-iiial  dc-stiny,  397 
Interest  and  principal,378 
Interest  and  dividend,  381 
Interments.  208 
Inundations,  138 
Inverted  words,  1G6 
Inventetl  by  priests,  174 
Ionic  =  Assyrian,  212 
Irish  A.  241 
Irish  writing.  184 
Irish  of  Meath,  104 
Irish  Cranncpgs,  128 
Iron  prodvietion,  337 
Irresponsibility,  424 
Irrigation,  349 
Isaac,  etym.,  170 
Isaac  and  Ksaii  myth,  144 
Isaac  and  .Jacob  myth,  284 
Ishmael's  footprints,  180 

Jachin,  228 
Jacob  myth,  284 
Jain  temples.  209 
Jamblicus.  13 
Jaw  of  man  and  ape,  89 
Jehovah. 151.277.  282 
Jesus,  on  A.  15.  232 
Jesus  teaehing.  270 
Jesus  redivivus.  305 
Jesus'  lienevolence,  424 
Jewels,  343 
Jewish  theology,  45 
Jewish  race,  145 
.lewish  )>rogrpss,  285 
Joan  d'Arc,  408 
Job.  287 
Josephus.  151 
Joshua,  284 
Judah, 144 
Judge,  Sim,  215 
Jukes,  83 
Jumieges.  47.  220 
Jupiter  .Serapis,  G3 
Justice,  392 


,lustinoiiolis,  144 

Kaab;ih.229 
Kahluren.  ic.) 
Kalahari    1  IJ 
Kane.  131.  13.-..  130 
Kant.  105 
Katena.  149 
Kaulba<  h.  405 
Kauitzir.  149 
Keniaman.  149 
Kent's  hole.  53.  58 
Kepler.  30 
Kho-teau  script.  347 
Khun-.aten.  154,282 
Ki-willow.  240 
Kibotos.  Ararat.  222 
Kingsborough,  218 
Kingston  plain,  207 
Kirk.  143" 
Kirkir.  215 
Kismet.  3i>3 
Kitchen  trash.  132 
Knox's  views.  100 
Kol,  logos,  237 
Kooner  mountain,  222 
Kou-wen  ideographs,  248 
Kraitsir's     system,     162, 

107.  173 
Kuyun\ik.  356 

Lac,  gala,  237 
Lachesis,  3ul 
Lady  queen.  289 
Lake  dwellings,  125 
Lamarck,  76 
Lamb  on  alphabet,  234 
Laniellre  Hint.  203 
Landlordism   3GG 
Landscapes,  200.  400 
Langley's  balance.  344 
Language.  158.  397 
Language    constitutional, 

1C5 
Language  no  test  of  race, 

177 
Language  of  priests,  174, 

178 
Language  of  beasts,  92 
Lapitha;',  47 
Laplace,  37 
Laplanders,  129 
Lartet,  GO,  GO,  258 
Lartet,  researches,  262 
Larch-planting,  351 
Lassen,  218 
Latin  and  Greek,  399 
Laurentian  age,  48 
Lausamie,  66 
Lavajman  of  Denise,  61 
Lavoisier,  58 
Law  and  legisl.ation,  391 
Lawgivers,  391 
Layard's  sheik,  35.  218 
Lavard's  altar  and  wedge, 

239 
Legacies  to  colleges,  419 
Legal  tender,  383 
Legends  of  the  Jews,  48 
Legislation,  391 
Leibnitz  11 
Lempriere.  215 
Le  Page,  408 
Le  Huv  man,  87 
LIpsius'  Denk.,  193 
Letters  uiisich;  down,  237 
Letters    arose    from    the 

sea,  246 
Letters  in  China,  249 
Lcverrier,  132 
Lleblg, 3 


INDEX. 


439 


Li^ce  caves.  54 
Life  of  J.SHS.  15 
Life  in  oUi  Eey|>t.  156 
Life  i'l  a  wnrfl,  "J 7 7 
Lily-?Tk,  220 
Liilroln.  16 
LlriBuistlcs.  175 
Linnaeus,  58,  88 
Ltnneaii  Soc.  Lane,  187 
Linant  P.ev.  Co 
Liiith  (K.  von  d.\  114 
Listen,  2-15 
Lit.-mture.  176 
Livingstone.  39,  143 
Looke,  165 
Lockver.  323 
LouaniW.  E.).  203 
Longfellow.  208 
Lonr-head  rare.  260 
Lopi's  book  of  Itiu.,  246 
Lossen.  347 
Lotophatri.  10 
Lot's  wife.  10.  273 
Louisville.  85 
Love  and  knowledge.  2 
Love.  God  of  love.  2S0 
Lubl>o<-k.  132,  134,  155 
Luose.  107 
LiiL-iitn.  257 
Lumber  trade,  351 
Luxury,  interest.  370 
Lycapolis  inscrip  ,  152 
Lvcnrgus,  14 
Lrell.  4,  4ii.  52,  56,  208 
Lvell.  list  of  strata,  62 
Lying.  317 
Lyon's  cabinet.  85 

51  forms.  241 
Ma.  truth.  228.  278 
Macanlay.  14 
Machine  power.  333 
Machinery.  371 
Ma'lelt-ine  r*-mains,  258 
ilasoicothic  A.  241 
■*' lin.  Mini,  242 
M  line's  An.  Law,  97 
Magdesprung.  186 
M  tgical  powers,  270 
Magic  square,  275 
Magnetic  needle,  40 
Mokolo  do  not  bury,  192 
Makrobioi.  10 
Malta  story.  206 
Mammoth.  53.  259 
5ran.  migratory.  86 
Man  the  worker,  122 
Man-breeding.  350 
Man  in  the  future.  352 
Manes  worship.  264 
Manetho's  list,  146 
Mann,  39 

Manufactures.  371 
Maps.  38,  332 
Maps  of  China.  40 
Maps  of  France.  112 
Maps  of  the  future,  331 
Marcosians.  2S3 
Mariette,  31.  192,130, 145 
Markham.  136 
Margaret.  372 
Marmorium.  357 
Marriage.  380 
Marseilles  map,  333 
Marshall,  11 
Martins.  114 
Mas.  Massu.  150 
Mas.  child.  170 
Masius  mount,  222 
Mass,  Romish.  276 
Massagetes,  10 
Massiuissa.  191 


Mason  and  Dixon.  39 

Mat<>r  (1  ilorosa,  37i> 

Mathem.itic'S.  23 

Matros  lectionis.  246 

Matter  and  spirit  24 

Mauritius.  322 

Mausolea.  190 

Max  Miiller.  420 

Maz:il  police.  150 

M.Cullorh,  20S 

McEnery.SS-.^S 

Mechanics.  377 

Medicine.  352 

Meigs.  107 

Melaulan  race,  115 

Melearth,406 

Meldrura.  322 

Meninon.  216,  274 

Memphis,  40.  192 

Menrhe  court.  56 

Menes.  154.  155 

Meneph'ha.  150 

Mentuliotep,  154 

Menu.  2.j6 

Mern.  222 

Metallurgy,  336 

Metaphvsics,  8 

Meteor."ilogy.4l,  323 

Metempsvchosis.  257 

Mexican  Gulf.  333 

Michael  Angelo,  34. 188 

Micah's  words.  288 

Mi'Miel.'t.  14 

Microscope,  ancient.  239 

Migrations.  41. 139, 143 

Mill.  165 

Miller's  view.s  80 

Millenium.  309 

3Ii!man.  281 

Mim,  Amira,  278 

Mineralogv.  334 

Ming  dynastv,  191 

Miracles,  300 

Mithraism.  254 

Mixture  of  vaL-es,  93 

Moirai.  301 

Mokattt-b.  151 

MoUy,  Polly,  230 

Monawhy, 393 

Monboddo,  76 

Mongol  faces.  97 

Monopoly.  364 

Monosyllabic.  179 

Monotheism,  284 

Money.  331 

Moon  worship.  31 

Moosseedorf.  12? 

Morals.  302.  397 

Morality,  425 

Morier,  221 

Morlot,  132 

Mortillet,  259 

Morton,  92 

Mosaic  cosmogonv,  45,  50 

Moses,  150,  407 

Moses  and  the  monu- 
ments, 148 

Mosque  of  Omar,  218 

MouUn  Quignon,  60 

Mountains  rising,  333 

Muir,  289 

Mulattoes.  112 

Miiller.  110.  165, 169, 171, 
•291.  420 

Multitude.  83 

Murchison.  4, 142 

Murder.  316 

Murgab  desert,  152 

MuTillo,  407 

Musquitoes,  85 

Mvcenre,  350 

Mythology,  358 


Name  fetich,  275 
Names,  savage,  precise,  69 
Napoli^on.  11 
Narr.nv  science,  71 
Natchez  pelvis,  61 
Nature.  403 
Nature  in  fate.  304 
Natural,  supernatural,  8 
Natur.il  historv.  347 
Nave.  navi«.  220 
Neanderthal  skull,  00.118, 

1-20 
Nebular  h  vpothesis ,  25 ,  73 
Negroes.  107 
Neolithic.  67 
Neptune.  21* 
Neville  pilotis.  128 
New  reel  age.  43 
New  Orlrans.  65 
New  Zealand  trlaclers,  64 
Newspapers.  359 
Newton.  11 
N'ham,  to  save,  230 
Nicaragua.  331 
Niebuhr.  14 
Nillson.  132 
Nimrod.  10 
Niobe.  10.  216 
Nismes.  53 
Nitocris,  154 
Nevera.  231 
Noah  myth  217,  285 
Noah  fish  god,  278 
Nobility  of  ancestors,  191 
Nofre  liotep,  154 
Noorgill  mtn..  222 
Northampton,  417 
Norton.  233 

Norwegian  churches,  219 
Notre  Dame  de  Paris,  220 
Nott  and  Gliddon,  65 
Nuclei  flints,  263 
Nuk-pu-nuk.  282 
Numerals,  Egypt,  35 

Oak  age,  131 
Obelisk,  techen,  225 
Oberli'!  Colle^re,  417 
Obi  fetich,  278 
Obscuritv.  246 
Observation,  70 
OCallighan.  128 
Offerings  to  manes,  257 
Ogham  script,  184 
Oil  wells,  272 
Old  man  rock,  273 
Ole  Bull.  109 
Olim,  formerly,  231 
Olm,  eternitv,  231 
Olvmpia,  356 
Olvmpos,  230 
Orn.277 
Omphalos.  278 
Onomatopoeia.  166 
Optimism.  295 
Oratory,  fine  art,  2 
Organization,  369 
Organization    of    charity, 

424 
Oriental  trade.  336 
Origin  of  language,  163 
Origin  of  arcliitecture.  183 
Origin    of    the    alphabet, 

214 
Origin  of  Chinese,  243 
Original  sin.  310 
Osb  >rne.  135 
Osiris.  194.  196 
Osi>rtasen.  154 
Otter  picture.  259 
Ottoman  sultans,  31 
Owen,  11.  OO 


440 


INDEX. 


Ownership,  363 
Oxford.  417.  420 
Ox  |)inture.  259 
Oyster,  132 

Poestum,  212 
Pagodas,  218 
Pal  1 1  rill!,'  40C 
Pal:<-i)litlne.  07.2C6 
Pal;i'i>iiti>liigy,  4 
Pala^izoic  age.  48 
Palaliiti'S.  12.5 
Palcstini-  survey,  356 
Paley.  \r.r, 
I'anllicisin,  292 
Paoj.  244 

Papal  cuinaKe,  383 
Papyri.  140 
Parai-elsus,  209 
Parliainentarv.  393 
Par'iithesis,  308 
Patois,  397 

Patrlarclin'  tombs.  192 
Patriarcli;il  liistory,  144 
Patterson.  333 
PaulatMalt!i.2nG 
PautliiiM-.  23(i.  244.  250 
Peal)ody  (deo.).  421 
Pebble  cut  f  >r  a  bear,  2G8 
Pediment.  212,  226 
Pei-ho,  139 
Pelrce,  11 
Pekin,  139 
Pelasgus,  10 
Pelops,  210 
Peloponnesus,  217 
Pennsy'.-'ania,  99, 109 
Penoospoi  knob,  206 
Perfection,  307 
Permian  asje.  49 
Personal  equation,  432 
Pessimi.am,  205 
Pestilence.  143 
Petroleum.  345 
Phallus,  188 
Pharaohtists,  146 
Phidias.  202,  40G 
Philadelpliia.  98 

Philte  cleft  rock.  273 
Philanthropy,  421,  424 

Phillips,  208 

PhiIolof>:y.  159 

Phonetics,  248 

Photography,  409 

Phratria,  258 

Physics,  8,  330 

Physical  sciences,  20.  21 

Physical  geofrraphy,  38 

Physical  destiny  of  man, 
306.  321 

Physiolocrv,  332 

Pictet.  i;;- 

Pii'turcs  iu  tombs.  193 

I'icturc.s  innumerable,  40S 

I'icturcs  on  rocks,  187 

Pictures  on  schist,  259 

Pilgrim's  Progress,  44, 271 

Pilots  villages,  125 

Pi)ie  age,  3.")1 

Pinebsa.  140 

Plan  of  creation,  72 

Plant  beds,  51 

I'lanting  in  India.  143 

Planet  worship,  32 

Vlath,181 

Pbito,  9,  11 

Plotiniis.  255 

Plumes  of  Ma,  228 

Plutarch.  13 

Pococke.  169 

Poet,  architect,  215 

Poey,322 


Poitiers,  186 
J'oitou  caves,  130, 178 
Politeness,  rite.^,  248 
I'olvandry,  303 
Polygnotiis.  405 
Pompeii,  87 
Pondres  cave.  53 
Pontifex.  215 
I'oohpooh  theory.  169 
Popocatiipetl.  273 
Population  of  I'a.,  99, 109 
Population      of      France, 

map,  112 
Porches  of  churches,  210 
Porphyry.  358 
Porter  (t.).  187 
Porticos,  210 
Possible.  205 
Posture  in  letters,  237 
Post-tertiary  man,  01 
Post-pleiocene  age,  49 
Potsdam  sandstone,  78 
Potato,  350 
Pott,  169. 172 
Poiichet  (G.).  00 
Poughkeepsie.  417 
Poultry  unknown,  155 
Pourt;ilis.  05 
Power  in  corI.  338 
Praxiteles,  202,  400 
Prav,  bray,  etc.,  276 
Prayer,  300 
Precious  metals,  384 
Pre-Raphaelism,  200 
Prescott,  14 
Prestwich.  53,  50.  59 
Prices,  real  and  false,  376 
Prices  unsettled.  386 
Priest  language,  178 
Priestley,  334 
Primates,  88 

Printing  keeps  words,  176 
Pritchard.  104 
ProcUis.  210 
Professors.  420 
Property,  310,  362 
Property  rights,  368 
Proportion.  201 
Propriety,  312 
Propylori,  210 
Prospero.  270 
Protection,  tariff,  375 
Protestantism.  250 
ProtoDoric.  210, 212,  227 
Providence,  428 
Pruner  bey,  108. 118 
Ptolemy's  inap.  38 
Public  spirit.  427 
Pmnpelly.  1.34.  140 
Pulpit,  aik.  227 
Pygmies.  10 
Pyramid  age.  155 
Pyramid  of  (iizeh,  Cheops, 

39.218 
Pyramid,  construction, 

idea.  100.  240 
Pyramid,  barbar,  224 
Pyrenees  forest,  142 
Pvrrha,  10 
Pytlia,-oras.ll,13 
Pythagoras,  numbers,  275 

Quadrumana.  83 
Quaine-clubbo,  04 
Quatrefages.  00,  106 
Question,  245 

Rabbi  in  Berlin,  275 
Race,  94 

Race   not  tested  by  lan- 
guage, 178 
Radicals,  Chinese,  251 


Railroads,  340.  387 

Rain,  143 

Ramsav.  CO 

Ramses.  149.  1.50 

Rasselas.  03 

Rawlinson.  34 

Reado,  15 

Reading  Railroad,  346 

Realism.  407 

R6clus,  107 

Redclavs.59 

Redcliire.  143 

Reiheiigriibcr.  208 

Reindeer.  53.  130  259 

Reindeer  cave,  207,  325 

Reiset,  107 

Relationship.  204 

Religions,  253 

Religions   of   the    future, 

428 
Remusat.  181 
Renan,  130,  147,  109,  193, 

107 
Renevier.  06 
Republics.  393 
Resiioiisibility.  424 
Revolutions,  140 
Rhine,  243 
Rhinoceros.  53 
Rigollet.  58 
Rig  Veda.  41.  289 
Rock  temples,  209,  211 
Rocking  stones,  273 
Rogers.  00.  208 
Roguery.  423 
R6hrig."lG9 
RollistO!i,01 
Roman  bridge,  63 
Rome's  relics,  357 
Romulus,  152 
Roots  of  words,  162 
Roots  in  bogs,  185 
Rosetta  stone,  236 
Rosiere.  00 
Ross.  135 

RossiiEt.  ^Eg.,225 
Rouen  gravels,  60 
Roujou,  208 
Roxbury  gravel,  97 
Rubens,  407 
Runic,  (A.  T.),  241,  242 
Ruskin,  0 
Rutuneyer,  128 

S,  initial,  228 
S  forms,  241 
Sabreism,  254 
Sabine,  0,  323 
Sahara.  04 
Sainte  Chapelle,  197 
Salisbury,  208 
Salvatioii,  230 
San. 148 

Sandification,  304 
Sanscrit  forgery,  137 
Sanscrit  language,  158 
Sanscrit  A,  240 
Sanscrit  mythology,  291 
Sarah  laughing,  283 
Sarandib,  222 
Sarcopliagus,  192.  198 
Sarcophagus  ark,  226 
Savages  of  stone  age,  130 
Savages  versus    civilized, 

201 
Savages  have  no  art,  208 
Savagery,  263 
Savings  banks.  381 
Scale  of  years.  63,  65 
Scandinavian  Ice,  324 
Scarabsei,  49 
Scherzer,  107 


INDEX. 


441 


Scbtsm,  431 
Schlagintweit,  39 
Schlesel,  1(J5 
Schmerling,  52,  54 
Schools  of  finance,  375 
School  convention,  417 
Schott,  169 
Schroder,  119 
SchAvarz,  107 
Sciences  c  ibrdinate,  3 
Science  falsely  so  culled, 

21 
Scoop,  soap,  229 
Scott,  15 

Scratched  bones,  184 
Scribe,  statue,  200 
Scriptures,  18 
Scrutin  de  liste,  394 
Sculpture,  265 
Sea,  sbi-shi,  242 
Sect,  teeling,  429 
Sedgewick,  46 
Segregation  of  types,  48 
Sepulchral  mound,  190 
Sesostris,  14, 152 
Seth-Aten,  283 
Setl  1,  283 

Shadows  of  tiles,  212 
Shalmauezar,  275 
Shan,  mount,  247 
Shanghu's  daughter,  136 
Shape  of  letters,  232 
Sheep,  pyramids,  156 
Sheep,  ship,  251 
ShemitfS,  115 
Sheshonk,  151 
Shingle-stealer,  313 
Ship,  cap,  229 
Shophetim,  215 
Shorthand,  268 
Sicily  caves,  59 
Signal  service.  327 
SiUiriaii  age,  48 
Silver,  345,  384 
Silver  mine,  Somerset,  272 
Simoda  earthquake,  6 
Sin,  310 
Sinbad,  45 
Singing  bird,  246 
Sipylus,  216 
Sion,  skuU  type,  118 
Sirius  worship,  37 
Skar,  to  cut,  215 
Skulls,  96, 

Skulls,  Swiss  types,  US 
Skulls  of  man,  102 
Slander.  316 
Smith  (P.),  39;  (R.),  1 
Social  destiny,  355 
Societies,  369 
Sociology,  122,  361 
Solomon,  153 
Solumnn  seal,  275 
Soma.  144  » 

Souime  gravels,  57 
Sophia.  17,  24 
Sophocles,  289 
Soul,  245 
Species.  76.  94 
Speech,  399 
Speke,  39 

Spencer,  73,  82, 165 
Sphinx  temple,  210 
Spinoza.  255 
Spirit,  238,  245 
Spirit-well  boring.  272 
Spontaneous    generation, 

102 
Sraddha.  257 
St.  Acheul  gravels,  60 
St.  Aubiu  pilutis,  268 


St.  Clemens  Chiuch.  367 

St.  George's.  218 

St.  Martm,  236 

St.  Paul's  gnosis,  23 

St.  Radlgonde,  186 

St.  Seurin,  341 

Stag  in  caves.  53 

Stag  and  doe.  picture,  259 

Standards  of  Kome,  187 

Standing  army,  390 

Stars,  star,  30.34 

Starvation.  423 

Statutes,  Boulag,  100 

Statutes,  fourth  dynasty, 

405 
Statuettes.  199 
Steam  engine,  338 
Steam  machinery,  372 
Steenstrup,  132 
Steles,  196 
Stephens,  218 
Stephenson,  11 
Sterility  of  Syria,  143 
Stewart  (B.),  323 
Stilobate,  227 
Stm,  judge,  215 
Stokes,  323 

Stone,  in  languages,  182 
Stone  age  art,  185 
Stonehenge,  190 
Stone  circles,  215 
Storm  theory,  329 
Strabo,  9 
Stratification,  47 
Strata  in  order,  62 
Structural  geology,  4 
Style  in  architec^ture,  218 
Style,  column.  227 
Style,  pencil,  228 
Styles  in  China,  249 
Submergence,  64 
Succession  of  forms,  49 
Suffrage,  393,  395 
Sufites,  114 
Sufued  Koh,  222 
Sumner,  208 
Sunderbunds,  41 
Sun-worshippers,  31 
Sunlight,  238 
iSnnshiue,  246 
Sun  spots,  322 
Supernatural,  8 
Superstitions,  17.  18 
Superstitions  existent.  2!t 
Superstitions  personal,27 1 
Surveying,  40 
Surveying,  geological,  343 
Surveying  Palestine,  356 
Surya  hvmns,  289 
Susim,  l48 
Susquehanna,  187 
Sutech-Baal,  150,  282 
Swathmore,  417 
Swedenborg,  255 
Swiss  palafittes.  125 
Swiss  tlints.  188 
Swords  of  bronze,  340 
Syene,  410 
Syllogism,  431 
Symmetry.  201 
Synthesis,  82 

Tahmu  race,  266 
Tanis.  148 
Tantalus.  216 
Tariff,  375 
Tartarus,  217 
Taste.  165,  201 
Taurus.  217 
Taxation,  374 
Tchouan  script,  248 


Techen,  obelisk,  22.^ 
Tel,  taurus,  217 
Tel  Amarna,  283 
Telegon,  216 
Telegraphs,  342 
Telephones.  330 
Temple  at  Baia3,63 
Temple  tombs,  209 
Temple  to  the  Sphinx.  2 10 
Tendencies,  428 
Tenement  houses,  421 
Tennyson,  16 
Tertiary  man.  61 
Thackeray,  15 
Theb.  217,237 
Thibetan  temple,  219 
The  possible,  295 
Theft,  316,  388 
Thompson,  132 
Thumb  of  man,  89 
Thurman,  268 
Thsau-hie,  247 
Ti  tomb,  196 
Tien  shan,  324 
Time  immeasurable,  50 
Time,  clock,  65 
Tini^re  cone,  64 
Tobacco,  350 
Tombs  first  built,  190 
Tomb  of  Sethos,  194 
Tomb  temples,  209 
Tool,  229 
Tor-ites,  227 
Torquay,  53 
Torques,  188 
Tortoise,  247 
Totmes,  154 
Toulouse,  212 
Tournal,  52 
Towanda,  126 
Trades  unions,  369 
Trade  aiiu  commerce.  :iS5 
Tramps,  422 
Transportation,  386 
Transposed  letters,  2;17 
Traut^vine,  208 
Treadwell,  11 
Triangulation,  332 
Triglyph,  212 
Triniurt),  277 
Triumiihe,  278 
Troglodytes,  10 
Trondjim,  64 
Trov,  217,355 
TroVon,  61,  66,  127,  259 
Truth  in  art,  2 
Truth,  Ma,  228 
Tunner,  341 
Turanian.  41, 115 
Turks,  107,  361 
Tui-ner,  39 
Turzac  relics,  258 
Tutmosis,  31 
Tvashtr,  292 
Types  of  man,  65 
Types  of  Cuvier.  77 
Types  of  religions,  253 
Types  of  life;  253 
Tyranny.  388 

Uhlmann,  225 
Ulysses,  210 
Umber,  278 
Umpire,  279 

Underground  curves.  331 
Undertakers,  190 
Unity,  77,  94 
Unitarianism.  279,  431 
Uniungulus,  70 
Universities,  419 
Dp,  173, 177 


442 


INDEX. 


Urn,  ark,  226 
Use,  ownership,  363 
Usury,  378 
Utznach,  64 

Valley  of  the  Gard.  58 

Vander  Kolk,  110 

Variety,  70 

Varuua,  290 

Vase,  235 

Vedas,  356 

Vesuvius,  87 

Victoria  falls,  143 

Village  sheik.  200 

Vion.GO 

Virohow,  107 

Vitruvius,  219 

Vost,  101.  110.  118,  120 

Vok-anoes.  331 

Volga,  142 

Von  Baer,  107,  255 

Von  Biich,  4 

Von  Struve,  6 

Voskoboiiiikof .  222 

Voting,  suffrage,  394 

Vrolick,  119 

Vyse,  39 

Wages,  377 
Wagner's  skulls,  103 


Wallace.  326 
Walrus  in  S.  C,  325 
Wangen  pilotis,  129 
War,  388 
Waste,  335 
W:iter  symbol,  241 
Wave  line,  242 
Weapons,  263 
Weather  charts,  328 
Weaving,  127 
Webster.  96 
Weil's  legends.  186 
Wedding  ring,  271 
Wek-ker,  107 
Welsh  language.  159 
Wedge  letters,  239 
Wedge  on  altar,  239 
Westminster,  220,  307 
Whewell,  7 
White  (B.),  255 
White  Mountains.  222 
White  pine,  351 
White  race.  115 
Whitney  (W.),  169,  175 
Whitney  (J.  D.),  324 
Wilkesbarre,  207 
William,  Etv.,  252 
Wilson,  14, 132 
Wind,  in  language,  182 
Women,  excluded,  257 


Women  educated.  414 
Women  lawyers,  415 
Woods,  organic,  161 
Word  feti.h.  275 
Word  painting,  2 
Word  roots,  102 
Work  the  basis.  123 
Worsac.  ]:',2 

Worsliip  of  dead.  19S.  256 
Worship  Ivpes.  253 
Wren.  220" 
Writing,  old,  155 
Wyoming  valley,  206 

Xerxes,  235 

Tadu,  144 

Yao,  247 
Yellow  iron,  1.39 
Yellow  race.  116 
Y-King.  244 

Z.  th,  S.  242 
Zerbhokhia.  289 
Zoan. 148. 356 
Zodiac.  36 
Zoblogv.  347 
Zoo.  Gardens,  449 
Zoroaster,  14,  286 


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